apocalyptic golfing and other less dramatic things

 

(i've been waiting for a reason to post this bizarre picture and, while i'm not entirely sure why, this felt like the right time...)

recipe for a stellar date night:

1. these crazies as your double date buddies. anyone who dresses up in costume whenever the opportunity presents itself (and sometimes even when it doesn't), is a-okay in my book

2. dinner at this fantastic place. i forgot how much i heart the mercury cafe. between the random ceramic tigers jumping out of the wall, the waitress who tried to convince us that grapefruit juice contains grapes, and the fact that more than half the menu is pasta-based yet they were completely out of every type of pasta known to man...it's just a fantastically one-of-a-kind place. 

3. pulling up to an abandoned building in sketch-ville where all we could see before entering was bright disco lights and all we could hear was what appeared to be gunshots and chainsaws.

allow me to introduce to you, "smash putt." don't quote me on any of these facts because they're 97% made up for dramatic effect...a group of people decided one day that what this planet is missing is an extreme putt putt golf course. so, they created one. but they didn't feel it fair to not share the love across the nation, so they pack up like a traveling circus and find old abandoned buildings around the country to temporarily set up this course for people to try out.

lucky for us, we had the great privilege of verbally signing the 37-page waiver claiming if we lost any limbs, we couldn't sue - and were set loose with clubs and balls in the darkly lit course*

i couldn't tell you which hole was my favorite. it's hard to choose between the foosball guys,

the hole where your ball gets hacked by a buzz saw (i didn't have a good picture of this one, so i made a very accurate artist's rendition to give you an idea),

the man-powered moped that was not only capable of shining really bright lights and honking loudly at the person hitting the ball, but also controlled the twirling of a little plate of french toast...??

another favorite was the "driving range" where you shot balls out of one of those air-powered guns...the 37-page waiver started to feel more and more legit as the night went on. look how serious the boy looks about it all

the boy's favorite was the drill press. by the end of the night, this is what our golf balls looked like:

and how could you not be happy about that??




* i feel it crucial to add that it was darkly lit because then i don't feel so bad that none of my pictures turned out...

these are the things that make the world go round

when meghan and i were talking about toys we wanted and never had as little kids, the grape escape came immediately to mind. remember that game? you create little playdoh grapes and move them through the “jam factory” where they have to avoid getting smashed or dashed or anything like that. i think it was on the market for about 2 months before someone realized that this game might encourage kids to try chopping each other in half or using oversized rolling pins (aka bulldozers) to squish their friends.

anyway, thank my lucky stars for ebay, i found it! it came all nice and ready-for-violence yesterday. it’s the best game i’ve ever owned. well maybe it’s a tossup - mall madness is a close second (technically that wasn’t my game though.) in other board game news, we decided the other day that if meghan shaved her head and grew a beard, she’d look like richard on guess who! i just now got to thinking – how fun would it be to set up a game of guess who with real people? like a family reunion or company guess who or something…

(p.s. look how sad all the emo kids look in the background of this picture)

we went to the death cab for cutie concert at red rocks where we decided that we’re getting too old for such shenanigans. next time we’re taking “butt donuts” (as meghan called them) to sit on. concert was awesome, people watching was even better. i’m not that far removed from high school, but i feel so out of it on the styles and the groups. like, for example, could somebody please explain to me the definition of emo?? and how is it different than punk or goth or indie?? all i know is i think that jojo on horton hears a who (fabulous movie) is emo. meghan just bought a sweatshirt that reminds me of jojo every time she wears it. and i tell her everytime she wears it even though she's never seen the movie. maybe i have a crush on jojo. don't judge me

the boy saw this van today. i’m so jealous i wasn’t there.

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

happy anniversary

one year ago today, we said our goodbyes to seattle and hightailed it outta there back to the glorious sunshine that is colorado. this means two very significant things:

1. i’ve been in colorado for a year (!)
1a. i’m not itching to leave the state anytime soon – a huge accomplishment for me

2. anniversaries should be recognized and celebrated so in recognition of our final moments in seattle, i’d like to recap what i remember from that day.

(disclaimer – i don’t remember much about my entire time in seattle. it’s what therapists call “repressing depressing memories” …bet you didn’t know therapists liked rhyming so much, did ya. (disclaimer on a disclaimer – i’ve never seen a therapist and don’t really know if this is a term they use. i did really like the cartoon dr. katz though and was sad when it was cancelled.))

leading up to the move, meghan didn’t think i was really serious about moving so she didn’t do much to aid things along. i sold all our furniture, subleased our apartment, packed our entire house (with the exception of her room, which she finally packed at 1am the night before we moved), packed the car…

so the morning of our move was an interesting one. meghan and i were both in moody moods for no particular reason. well, probably the reasons were that meghan finally realized we were really moving and i had been in seattle for four months too long. here are the highlights:

1. meghan decided she didn’t like the way the car was packed. (it was packed perfectly. thanks for helping, daniel). so she took everything out and repacked the entire car. (it wasn’t packed perfectly anymore. i couldn’t see out of any windows)

2. we had a couple of things still to do before leaving. we broke up the chores:

i took a box of unwanted stuff to the salvation army. i couldn’t see out of any of the windows. not even my side mirrors. not even when i rolled my windows down. it was by pure luck that nobody was in the lane when i shifted over. well, either luck or karma – probably since i was taking a box of stuff to donate to salvation army, good karma was on my side. yay karma!

i gave meghan the job of a final cleaning our apartment. would’ve been a fairly easy job only:

- the people who were subleasing from us showed up at the house to move stuff in. this was not planned. so they hovered over her, watching her scrub toilets and stuff.

- our new jamaican neighbor came over to see what was going on. he hovered over her to snatch up any remaining food or cleaning supplies we failed to pack.

- poor girl

3. we left a lot of things behind, but for some reason, meghan and i were both insisted on bringing along some interesting things.

- meghan wasn’t about to leave seattle without making sure every hanger we owned was in the car. and they couldn’t be clumped together in a bag or anything. no no – they had to be strategically strewn throughout the entire car. every time we opened one of the doors, hangers would be puked out.

- i wasn’t about to leave seattle without making sure every trashcan we owned was in the car. they were nice trashcans. not really, but we got a good deal on them and why would you leave behind a good deal? retrospectively i wish we would have taken the black lamp instead of the trashcans. meghan didn’t plan on taking the trashcans so she didn’t make room for them in her repack jobs. i wasn’t about to leave those puppies behind though. so, she filled them with hangers and shoved them in.

4. it’s also our mom’s birthday today. happy birthday mom! she called us last year to remind us that we didn’t call her to wish her happy birthday. we reminded her we were moving and that we were both moody, but that’s no excuse for not calling on a birthday. sorry mom.

5. i drove like the wind. i think i maybe took my hands off the wheel two times to scratch my head or something. the only words i said to meghan were part of this conversation that would happen every few hours:
“want me to drive?” “no. i’m good.”

i was on a mission. i’ve never driven with such determination in my life. i think we made the trip in nearly half the time as we probably should have.

we both breathed a huge sigh of relief as we crossed the colorado border. and then we started talking to each other again. like this:
“want me to drive?” “aw, that’s so sweet of you to offer. i’m doing just fine thanks, but let’s stop for a leisurely lunch and i’ll treat.”


it’s been sunshine and lollipops ever since. only not so much lollipops but that's just a personal choice.

ding ding dong ding

300 tubas. what better way to bring in christmas? i was impressed with how silently they played silent night. they probably only had 5 tubas playing silent night and all the other ones were just pretending. joke’s on us. thanks for risking your ears and windows, denver, by letting 300 tubas congregate in a confined area to play us christmas carols. it just wouldn’t have been the same if it was oboes.

to top it all off, mr zachman was a guest conductor! mr zachman was our music teacher in junior high. he was cross-eyed. i have nothing against cross-eyeds, but it does make it rather hard to follow instructions when your conductor points at you with his baton but looks right at your neighbor. also, he was huge on lecturing on how to take good care of your instrument – keeping it clean and tightening the screws when needed and such. that’s why it was funny when he got really upset in class one time and threw his clarinet against the wall. shattered to pieces. way to take care of your instrument mr. zachman. oh…you weren’t talking to me?

christmas rocks!

so if you’ve never taken the opportunity (or even worse – you’ve never even thought about taking the opportunity…shame on you) to see the transiberian orchestra in all their concert glory, you haven’t truly experienced all that christmas music has to offer. also, it’s a great blast to the 80’s, and who doesn’t want that to be part of their holiday festivities?? i’m having a hard time limiting my highlights of the show. let’s just say there were lots of lasers and fire and strobe lights and probably about a thousand band members and a narrator telling a really cheesy christmas story. and a couple of singers with good gravely voices. and everyone had really long hair. and the girls all had blue eyeshadow like barbie and the rockers. and there were a handful of guitar duels and a piano duel and those triangle shaped guitars. and it started snowing inside the pepsi center.

i’m serious – it had every ingredient necessary to make a perfect flashback rock concert. it was awesome. plus, all their music is so fun – what better way to get in the christmas spirit than with a jam session of oh come all ye faithful? i think the absolute highlight for us was the main violinist, anna phoebe, though. she was incredible. she had this custom made bright pink electric violin that she would just wail on – she must have gone through at least a dozen bows. aside from that, i’ve never seen someone with so much energy. 3 hours of running back and forth, doing backbends, running up into the crowd…wow…i’m in love.

meghan and i also learned some things about each other we hadn’t realized before during this concert. another christmas miracle. we both have the exact same pitched “wooo!!” like after a song is over and you’re resisting the urge to throw the beast, so you scream “whoo!!” instead? yeah – identical. and we’d start and stop at the exact same time too. it would’ve been funny to put some poor unassuming person in between us – surround-sound whoo-ing!

mmm pizza

in case you were wondering and are ever in the area, the world’s best new york-style pizza lives in my (soon to be former) apartment complex. it’s magical. and the best part is, they speak spanish…er…maybe not…




p.s. i need to learn why sometimes my phone takes black and white pictures. not that taking a picture of a takeout menu in black and white isn't artistic...

this is halloween

so in case you were wondering what a young single woman with no kids and no desire to dress up like a chesty bunny wearing stilettos does for halloween, here’s your answer:

the third annual spooky wooky yorkie halloween party. denver loves hosting things for dogs. especially when it entails dressing them up. one might think this means denver hates dogs because how cruel to make them dress up like fairies (we really did have two “fairies” at the party), and that’s probably true. but come on – it’s so funny. only maybe the boy dog dressed up like britney spears was a little much.

in our intense efforts to participate in only the highest-class activities (also known as – “will this make a good story?”) meghan and i just had to go to this refined little event. i got milo a pirates of the carribean costume with a really cool little hat (complete with jack sparrow dreads and beads pertruding from its rim). only milo refused the wear the hat. come on man – i spent good money (not really) for that hat! so, he looked a little less pirate and more peasant or homeless person in raggy..rags…and he’s a total scruftster right now, so hair all over the place and disheveled. plus i don’t really know what happened to him – he’s only supposed to be 6 pounds, but he’s a little mutant pushing the 10 pound mark. which sounds small, until he’s in a room full of 3-4 pound dogs. wait – not just in the room with them, but actually and literally running them all over like some sort of godzilla. my dog’s the one running frantically across the screen.

he did this the entire time we were there. got in dog’s faces, jumped on them, pulled at ears and tails, ran in circles like a madman while all the other puppies pleasantly drank their tea with their pinkies raised. i love my dog.

Punkin Chunkin

apparently there’s a shortage of pumpkins this year for halloween. maybe i’m talking out of line, but i feel like i heard that somewhere – probably from a reliable source, but who knows. anyway the point is, i love pumpkins. pumpkin smoothies, pumpkin ravioli, pumpkin whatever-else-you-make-from-pumpkins. except for jack-o-lanterns kind of scare me. they didn’t used to until i got a little tiny pumpkin last year with full intention to make the cutest jack-o-lantern known to man. so of course it had big doe eyes and a little smiley smirk and maybe some little elfish ears because i heard those were cute. it was the freakiest thing ever. looked like an anime teletubby – not pleasant. and then it looked really scary once it started getting wrinkly. i couldn’t even throw it away because i was too afraid to get too close to it. it was for sure some sort of evil spirit vessel.

you know what i wanted to do with that thing? this

punkin chunkin is a sport (did you know “sport” is the word used for a hamster that is genetically different from the rest of all hamsters? makes the phrase your dad used to say to you – “hey there sport!” a little less endearing doesn’t it?) where all the world’s geeks (nobody else is smart enough – no offense) create pumpkin launchers. there are apparently a few cities that have nationally known punkin chunkin contests. other cities (aurora colorado) are in training (and free!!) i initially thought there were probably rules and limitations in how you could create these things, but after we saw one of the pumpkins get launched riding a rocket, now i’m not so sure. i also initially thought these pumpkin launchers would be pretty makeshift – lobbing the poor defenseless pumpkins up about 25 or 23 feet and then dropping down no more than a few footsteps away from where they started. um…one of these launchers sent a pumpkin 1,400 – yes 1,400 feet!! they could probably start a company – their clients would be people like me with demon pumpkins. their slogan can be something like “launching your demon pumpkins 1,400 ft so you don’t have to be haunted by their anime eyes.” something like that. i’m still working on wording a little bit.

what not to do at a concert

every summer isn’t complete without a good ol’ down and dirty, sit-in-the-scolding-sun-for-hours-with-some-of-the-best-people-watching-on-the-planet, rock concert. our concert of choosing (thanks to meghan winning free tickets for…well, we don’t really know why…) was the big gig. of course i was excited for this because i thought it would be some sort of pink floyd “great gig in the sky” tribute or something. i was mostly wrong except i’m pretty sure the words “pink” and “floyd” (okay, maybe not floyd) were used at one point or another during the show.

it was a 6+ hour long concert with about a dozen bands playing. i was shocked when i heard there were different groups – i thought it was the same band changing clothes and occasionally number of members during breaks. that’s how unique each band was. yay pop culture. *disclaimer: blue october has a very unique sound.* *disclaimer on my disclaimer: i have to say that so meghan doesn’t beat me up.* *disclaimer on my disclaimer on my disclaimer: she could*

now, if you’ve never been to one of these types of concerts, let me set the stage (har har) for you. imagine a huge community picnic (with more drugs). you pretty much have to come at 2pm to get a good spot on the giant lawn. it’s really ironic because at 2pm on a steamy august saturday, the “best seats in the house” are actually shoved back in the corners of the field…aka the only places dotted by shade. you can’t fall into this trap though, because these “best seats of the house” will be the absolute worst seats of the house once the sun sets and 8 billion more people come. so, even though your doctor might disagree, sitting in the spot most prone to give you heat stroke is the option for you.

the concert was fun. me, meghan and kyle swayed with the music (or because of heat stroke…i’m not really sure). more and more people piled onto the lawn, meaning by the end of the night, we were in very close proximity to the girl who mooned us, the belly dancer, any number of illegal substances and to the innocent foot that i violated.

in my defense, when there’s not enough room to even spread your personal bubble to 2 inches, you can’t be held responsible for your actions…kyle was sitting on one side of me and i had my arm around the back of him – you know, not wrapped around him or anything, just resting on the ground behind him.

i started playing with his hand a little flirtily (real word?) (p.s. it’s not...but flintily is) when it all of a sudden occurred to me “hmm…that’s kind-of an odd position for his hand to be in…” my stomach sank a little bit because i pretty much knew what was going on before i even turned around to confirm it. i turned around to see my hand, groping the barefoot attached to the lady sitting directly behind kyle. i thought her foot was kyle’s hand…my bad…

so what’s more disturbing – the fact that i was groping a strange lady’s foot or the fact that the lady behind me was letting me grope her foot without saying anything. was she getting some sort of satisfaction out of it? sick. i’m going with that’s the worst part. but maybe she was just embarrassed because what do you say to some stranger who’s fondling your foot?

the rest of the concert was good. kyle even let me hold his hand again after i washed all the random foot germs off.

misread street signs

apparently colorado's a little behind on its political correctness

but it at least pretends like its handicap accessible..

p.s. this sign is right next to a spiral staircase

llamas llamas everywhere

i can't say i'm particularly fond of llamas, but that's probably widely disputed based on:

1. i recommend emperors new groove to everyone (shameless promotion - you should see it)

2. this is one of my favorite things on the internet

3. my llama shirt

4. my recent journey to the burro days in fairplay colorado

here's the funny thing about the burro festival. there are camels...there are llamas (more to follow)...but from what i saw, there aren't any burros actually in attendence. (this is a lie. i think we just missed the actual burro day)

here's the other funn(ier) thing about the burrow festival. the festival kicks off with a 3 mile run/walk. sounds sane enough right? right. the trick is this - you have to race with a llama. like this:

(p.s. i had no idea that guy was wearing a byu shirt before i took that picture...)

you and your llama speed through main street, dodging all obstacles in your way. then it's off to the fields where you tread through streams, over rivers and through the woods. oh and, these llamas are hardcore - they train for a whole year! the 2008 llamas are already starting their boot camp. of course, they are still llamas and llamas are apparently stubborn. this is no task for sisies. even some boston marathoners probably couldn't do this race. we unfortunately couldn't do it because by the time we got there, they were out of llamas. so sad

how brilliant is this? uh doi - very brilliant! i'm not really sure where the money goes or what organization puts this on, but i assume it has to do with the national association of llamas or something equally llama-minded.

the happiest place on auraria parkway

in the name of crossing-things-off-the-summer-to-do-list, we (kyle, kyle o, meghan and i) went to elitches last weekend. in traditional nathaniel style, i've decided to rate the highlights of the day to help you and your friends plan out your most successful elitches amusement.

the mind eraser - b+

definitely a good coaster to start on to make sure your accompanying friends can hold their lunch. you have to wait the extra 2.5 hours to sit in the front though to get the whole effect. I'm pretty sure the other seats don't jerk your head back and forth like a pinball on the headrest (thus the literal name)

the boomerang - a-

a personal favorite. once again, a literal name (elitches is clever like that) - this coaster combines the forward acceleration of a car on a track with the backward umpf of a car going backward on a track. my favorite part of this ride was when they closed it down temporarily for "minor technical problems" while we were in line - those tricks really get people pumped for the rides. nobody wants to ride a safe roller coaster.

shipwreck falls - b-

this is our version of splash mountain, minus any singing robots and about 30 feet of drop. i would rank this one higher if the water that splashed all over us wasn't a lovely shade of asparagus green. also, this ride is not nearly as fun as standing on

the bridge at the bottom of shipwreck falls - a

anytime you can't even see blurry images of anything because the wall of water coming toward you is so thick, that's a good thing.

the seadragon - a-

the only appropriate way to go on this ride is to put half your group on one side and the other half on the opposite side. and then you have screaming contests. lucky for us, the entire ship agreed to participate. it was a lovely chorus and for the record (pay attention meghan), my side won

insanely huge blue snow cones - a++

except for the $280 pricetag

white water rapids - c+

this one looked really fun when it was 98 degrees, but then when it was hands-down the longest line we waited in and only about 32 degrees and raining by the time we got into our raft, it wasn't as fun. we pretty much all huddled in the middle trying to avoid even the smallest drop of dumb asparagus water. i think my favorite parts about this ride were the two random girls in our raft - one took her shoes off because she just barely drew checkerboards on them and didn't want it to wash off. the second because she just barely drew eyebrows on herself and didn't want them to wash off. she kept asking us "are my eyebrows gone?"

so because we waited in line so long to sit with miss no-eyebrows, by the time we got off it was lightning...ing and they closed the rides. we were bummed because we didn't even ride the grand daddy of rides. but a close second included going to

qdoba for dinner - a

best burrito place around in my humble (and true) opinion

after we were stuffed of burrito we found out that all the rides were open again, so we drove back to elitches and headed straight to

the flying coaster - a+

this used to be called the superman i think but then six flags sold elitches and everything went generic. so sad. what a crappy name. anyway, didn't change the quality of the ride. this thing was awesome! you climb up this little ladder into a pod and then it rotates you onto your stomach and you go through a coaster superman...i mean flying coaster...style. crazy feeling!

and finally...

merry-go-round

this one is too scary to talk about

who needs the kwik-e-mart?

why are apu and i so happy? because denver now holds one of 12 kwik-e-marts nationwide!

go us

on a slighter sadder note, the squishy machine was broken

chalk art at its finest

yet another reason to love colorado (this blog should seriously be on the colorado promotions page huh?) - the sidewalk chalk art festival. um, hello - how could i not go? the paintings were awesome. you've all gotten that email of all the 3d sidewalk art chalk guy and stuff, yeah - imagine that live and in person right on our very own larimer street. it was dreamy. of course, it was about a bamillion degrees outside (i'm pretty sure that means one million times one billion) but the artists probably weren't too hot. i mean sure, they were pretty much lying on the bajillion (one billion times one...jillion...) degree pavement for two days straight, but they sat on little carpet squares, which i'm thinking probably counter-acted the heat. carpet squares are said to have that kind of healing power i hear.

there was a little kid section where the kiddies could practice their own sidewalk chalking. we of course had to get in on this action to see if carpet squares really are heat reducers (they aren't by the way) our artwork was hands down better than any of the little kids' stuff. blew them out of the water.

it was maybe funny that my boss was there with his family and saw me on my carpet square in the kiddie section...i asked him if he was glad he hired me since my work was better than any of the kids' there...he didn't answer me

another plus about the chalk art festival was the naked children. i'm so glad we're raising the next generation to be even less reserved than we are. thank you sidewalk chalk art for helping us evolve.

reason number 8,259 why i love colorado - the colorado breastfeeding task force. meghan found this flyer downtown (bless her soul). in case you're not one for reading fine print, or print in green clouds, i'd like to point out this phrase:

"come help set a national breastfeeding record for the most mom's breastfeeding at one time!!!!"

that's code for - thousands of exposed women and suckling children will be sitting in a park in downtown denver in broad daylight. i don't even know where to begin.

my other favorite part is this: "events for all ages." i'd probably rather not see any 80-year old ladies trying to breastfeed something, but maybe that's just me.

now don't get me wrong, i'm all for breastfeeding - but beyond getting a bunch of ogling teenage boys to gather in one area, I just can't see the point to this event. what's going to happen if they get over 1,000 women there? with one unified sucking sound will the world realign immediately stopping global warming, world hunger and teletubbies? that would be worthwhile

happy birthday bug!!

birthdays are kind of a big deal. whether you use them as an excuse to draw attention to yourself (my favorite approach) or just as an excuse to pack your day as full as possible with random things (meghan’s approach), you just can’t complain with a birthday. here is a sample list of what we did for meghan’s birthday yesterday:


free day at the denver botanical gardens (it also helps to share a birthday with earth day) we got to visit the tropical steam room that reminded me (but didn’t make me homesick for) d.c. summers. a good indicator of not fun humidity is when your glasses fog up upon entry.



also since most people associate delicate lovely flowers with over-sized disturbing bugs, the botanical gardens decided to combine the two and add giant statues of various garden bugs (made me want to run right out to my local greenhouse and get some flowers to start my own garden). my favorite bug was the one with a rotary saw on its back. i was a little bit disappointed when meghan informed me that the saw doesn’t actually spin. what kind of cruel joke is that?

next we went to the denver aquarium, which is probably about my favorite aquarium ever. they’ve figured out that most people are getting bored pretty quickly looking at fish, which is why aquarium profits have gone down 32% over the past five years (i’m completely making up all traces of that statistic). but the denver aquarium doesn’t stop at fish. no no – the denver aquarium has real life tigers! who knew tigers had anything to do with fish?? three big ol’ tigers strutting their stuff and eating any fish in their way…seems like a bad investment to buy something that eats your main attraction right? wrong! the tigers are great. i’m still not sure what they’re actually doing at the aquarium, but i like it all the same.












another thing the denver aquarium has is tandem bike rentals. you can rent a lovely surrey bike for a measly $12 per half-hour and ride around the platte river. this is what we decided to do. how could we resist? the dumb thing had a canopy and a little bell! we made some friends and probably some enemies on that thing. one biker tried to get around us (we were kind-of large) and biffed it on the gravel…we rang our bell as an “i’m sorry” gesture. we even tried off-roading a little bit, but got stuck and had to push our bike out of the rocks. it was probably the best half hour of my life.


finally, we went to a decemberists concert. the concert itself was great – especially the part where they were singing about a whale eating everybody and then a whale actually came out on the stage and “ate” the entire band.



the concert was definitely shadowed by what was going on right in front of us. a fabulously nerdy girl and a guy were being very cuddly – holding hands, kissing…the whole bit. we thought it was cute and made some comment about how the right people find each other. then, the girl turns around and kisses the boy directly in front of her! they started holding hands and smooching! turns out there were about 4 guys surrounding this girl and she was acting all lovey dovey with all of them and they all knew about it…it was really bizarre. meghan had to drag me to a different area because apparently i was “ruthlessly staring” (i don’t think meghan used the word “ruthlessly” – after all she is only 23, you can’t expect genius yet)

so all in all i have no complaints about the day. wait – one complaint about the day. next time, i’d like the saw on the back of the giant bug to spin. happy birthday meghan!!