Summer 2.0

Um, excuse me. Where has the summer gone? Seriously! It was almost here one second and the next, it's July 24th. Yes, one day after I turned 27.5, y'all! No kidding, I celebrated my half birthday. Roomie W was trying to tell me that I made it up and that my celebration was fake. Really?! REALLY??!! Um, 6 months is an actual amount of time. I was born 6 months and 1 day ago. That's a fact. July 23rd is an actual day on the calendar. I told him to have fun the next time he hits the 6 month mark with a girlfriend and she wants to celebrate. "Um, no thanks, babe, you're just making that up. It's not a thing." Aaaaaaaaand break up. So maybe I got on my soap box a little about it. Maybe. But hey!...just because others don't choose to celebrate their half birthdays doesn't mean they don't occur. I had at least three people wish me "Ha Bir". And yeah, it felt good to hear it. And no, they would not have done this if I hadn't made a big deal of my half birthday, but I like celebrating my increasing age (to many of my peers' astonishment) and if I want it to be a big deal, I'll make it a big deal. SOAP BOX!

Oh, but I was going to mention how I celebrated the day. Before I went off on that other tangent, that is. I had a hot dog lunch. I shall digress again. I usually bring my lunch to work. Keeps the calories down, for whatever that's worth, and keeps my money in my wallet longer. However, when I want to treat myself, I sometimes declare it Hot Dog Day. I usually can rope one or two of the Lunch Bunch (the super cool kids I eat lunch with at work) into taking Hot Dog Day with me. I/we walk across Independence Ave. and head to the second hot dog stand on the left of the plaza. The first hot dog stand could be perfectly good, but I don't patronize it. Hot Dog Lady at stand #2 is a delight. So yeah, I usually get the two hot dog special which includes small chips and a can of pop. SCORE! It's delicious. Anyway, that's what Hot Dog Day is and it occurs randomly and often without much warning and it can make a day that is otherwise rubbish. Granted, yesterday wasn't rubbish cause it was my HALF BIRTHDAY but those hot dogs sure kicked everything up a notch.

Now, my roommates had been teasing me for getting excited about my half birthday for a couple weeks. Naturally, I didn't think anyone was going to acknowledge the day unprompted. I mean, why would they? I just like to use the day as an excuse to treat myself to things and make people wish me "ha bir" but Roomie B really went above and beyond. Drum roll please...
I came home to a happy (half) birthday card AND my first Spanish-English Dictionary! Um, AWESOME! Isn't she the bees' knees? I mean really.

Alright, so now that I've spent approximately half my life discussing my half birthday, I'll move on to the rest of Summer 2.0, and this Spanish-English thing has something to do with it. For a while now I've really wanted to learn Spanish. I took French in high school and loved it. Forgot it all by now, of course. But I would like to be bilingual and I think Spanish is the way to go. Not only because the Spanish team won the World Cup and oh boy is that goalie Casillas H-O-T, and not only because I want to watch soccer and yell at the TV in Spanish, but also because I think Spanish is cool. Um, probably the first two reasons are better. Anyway, four of us lovely ladies are banding together to get group tutoring sessions through some language thingy. We're going to be ablar espagnoling in like two hot seconds.

In other news, this summer was defined for me by two important things: 1) Roomie K's imminent departure to Seattle and 2) the World Cup. I am all about that World Cup. I love me some futbol, and I grieved when July 12th came along and had no more intense competition to drool over every day. Remember that U.S.A. vs. Algeria game? I was watching that at a bar near my work. I asked my boss if I could come in early that day and then take a super early lunch so that I could watch our national team school those Algerians. Let me tell you in all seriousness, nothing can compare to the feeling of watching a game like that with a hundred other proud Americans. That place was packed, everyone in his/her work clothes, drinking business juice and screaming their heads off for our boys. When we scored that goal in stoppage time, the entire place erupted. I'm sure you've seen clips on Youtube, but it was incredible. I almost cried. I even peed in my pants a little cause I was jumping up and down and hugging my coworker and screaming so loud. That might be too much information, but I'm just letting you know how big a deal it was. I was hoarse the rest of the day because I'd spent so much of my vocal allotment on yelling at players and refs.

Four years ago I was taping almost every game and playing soccer with my brother in our living room and our yard. I wanted the Italians to win and they did, the divers. This year I had no way to tape the games so I listened to/watched almost everyone on espn3.com at my desk. Usually I'm listening to music while I enter gifts. For one whole month I was listening to Irish commentators and trying not to yelp when something good/bad happened to the team I was rooting for at the time. My world was World Cup and now what? I have half a summer left.

Just kidding. Things aren't as dreary as all that. I have lots left in the summer that are even cooler than sneakily watching/listening to World Cup games at work. Um, don't worry people. Everyone was dong it. Seriously. And no one cared. Oh, and everyone I work with knew I was doing it too. Did I mention that they, in turn, were also doing it? Just saying.

I also should expand on the first item that has defined my summer - Roomie K's imminent departure. She's moving to Seattle to be with her future hubster and we remaining roommates are charged with the task of attempting to find someone cool enough to live in her room after she leaves. I don't even have the energy to get into what that whole process has been like. UGH. But I will in the future, never fear. There are laughs to be had about that one and I want to make sure you have them. So stay tuned.

Um, in 8 days I fly to TRINIDAD!!!! That's right. Family reunioning (it's a word now, fool!) with not only the Ryan side of the family, but My Auntie K and Uncle K as well (from the Davis side). Weeeee! The rest of the summer is going to kick the first half of the summer's tushy.

I cut my hair today. It's really short.

Okay, I have things to do now, like watch more of The Mentalist and wish Simon Baker wanted to date me. You'll be hearing from me again, and soon. And if it's not soon, that's because I'm in Trinidad and I'm having too much fun to care about anything else in the world. But I'll let you know how that goes. Oh yes I will. I might even let you know about how other things went/go, too, like finding a new roommate and what I did for July 4th (like that's even relevant anymore) and what's on my Fall Bucket List and how I've done on my Summer Bucket List. We'll see!

Luhyaokaybuhbyethen.

The Lexington Weekend

Hey folks. As promised, I'm taking you on a journey back a bit. I think this weekend's worthy of its own post, and if you don't agree with me I just don't want to hear about it. Technically, there have now been two Lexington Weekends since I started drafting this post...three months ago. Buuuuuuuut, the weekend I'm referring to here is the one in April for the Nave/Symes wedding. Now that we've gotten THAT all figured out, let me just say - this was a whirlwind weekend, folks. A whirlwind weekend.

Let's start with the car rental, shall we? I had never rented a car before. Never. Always been too scared cause I had no idea how to do it and frankly, until a couple years ago, I hadn't even been old enough to rent a car without paying fees for being under 25. This time, however, I knew what I needed to do. I'm not a huge fan of flying, plus it was going to be way more expensive than renting a car...so I decided to rent a car. I went to Hotwire.com (product placement, uhthankyouverymuch), reserved a little compact for the weekend, and was instructed to show up at the airport to get my vehicle bright and early on Friday morning. Ahem. I spent the two weeks before picking up the car fretting about picking up the car. Just ask my roommates and coworkers. I was all, "where am I supposed to get it" and "do you think they'll have shuttles from the metro" and "I'm afraid I won't be able to find the Alamo desk" and blah blah blah. I even had a nightmare about this. A nightmare! I dreamt that I went to go pick up my car from the airport and the attendant wouldn't let me take the car on my own until he'd first driven us about an hour out of the way to pick up snacks for him from a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Then I was allowed to drop him off at the airport and go on my merry way, having no snacks for my own road trip, of course. Wow.

Worry not, dear readers. I woke up super early that Friday morning, walked to the metro stop, metroed to the airport, and successfully followed all the signs to the Alamo/National rental area of the giant concrete jungle that is the parking garage. Oops, went to the wrong desk. "You here to rent a car," asked the attendant (whom I feared would cause me trouble later, if my dream was any sort of prophecy). I replied in the affirmative. "Well you need to go back to the stairs then down one flight then to the Alamo desk, then back up a flight and back here so we can get you your car." UUUGGGGHHHHHH! Fine, done. I walked back with my rental confirmation in hand, and was directed towards a very grumpy-looking female attendant behind a portable desk. "Car," she asked, quite grumpily. "Yes, please," I said in meek tones. "Follow me," she instructed. Walk, walk, walk, stop. Okay, there were about four cars in the garage with trunks up and keys in the ignition. "You can have any one of these," she said, pointing to the three silver compacts and the shiny red one right next to us, "which one you want?" I looked around once and then noticed she was giving me the once-over. "Hmmmm," she mused with attitude, "I think the red one for you."

Red one it was. I closed the trunk, hopped in, adjusted the mirrors, made sure I knew what all the controls did and turned the key in the ignition. Was this thing on? I turned it again. OHHHHH. It was on, alright. It just didn't sound like a heap of metal sucking in air for dear life. In other words, it didn't sound like my car. So I quietly eased out of the parking spot and out into traffic, headed home for my bags. After gathering bags and snacks, I hopped back in the car, about-faced and headed (Google map directions in hand) to Lexington. I made it without any problems.

Nope, that's a lie. I had a big problem. This problem was....I GOT LOST. IN VIRGINIA. ABOUT 10 MILES FROM MY HOUSE! Oh, the humiliation. Yeah, I knew where I-66 was and I knew how to get there, but Google was telling me to take some old state highway and wander through tiny town U.S.A. to eventually merge on 66. Little did they tell me that this is impossible! ARGH! So I ended up back tracking through some town and getting back on the highway the way I knew how. Lost close to an hour, I'd say. Maybe 45 minutes. Well from that point it really was smooth sailing. I made great time, arriving about an hour or so before I'd planned. AND that drive was divine. Really pretty part of the country, first of all, and secondly there was almost no road noise in that little Corolla. The speakers actually worked. I could actually hear the bass. I was singing and eating pretzels and drinking my Diet Coke and loving life.

When I finally arrived in Lexington I made my way to my friend Julia's house and settled in the pink room for the weekend. By the way, I could never redo a house. I'm telling you this now. Julia's house is amazing, but it got that way cause she tore out walls and redid wiring and changed closets and on and on. ACK! I haven't the knowledge nor the patience for these types of real estate transformations. I was impressed. Anyway, the weekend passed so quickly. I got to catch up with old friends, see a former roommate get married (and move to Oklahoma!), and I even got to help clean up a dead possum from Julia's back yard. Her dogs are possum hunters, and good ones too.

I did get to really Lexington-it-up on Saturday by going to Keeneland for a little horse racing. What a cultural experience. I hadn't been to track races since I left Kentucky, and I wasn't opposed to betting a couple dollars on the prettiest filly. I won about $1.85 or so on that first bet, so I thought I'd invest in some more.....losing. I think I netted a $2 loss or something. Ended in the red. Whatever, I enjoyed myself and Jesus still loves me, k?

Sunday I arose early, broke my fast with the other people in the house and left Lexington for sunny Arlington. What a great drive that was, even better than the one to Kentucky. This time I took some of the back highways through the hills/mountains of West Virginia. I did take pictures of those, but who's shocked that I don't have them on this computer, nor on my thumb drive? No one's raising his/her hand? Yeah, I know. Don't judge. I wove my way round those curvy strips of asphalt (who's the poet now, fool?!), singing at the top of my lungs and exclaiming every time I came around a bend and saw scenery even more beautiful than the bend before. It was great.

To sum up, rent a car when you go on road trips if you happen to have a car that leaks water when it rains, has no AAA coverage, lacks any sort of speaker power and gives you a good earful of the wind whistling by when you're going any speed over 25 mph. Success.

So here's to the Symes. May you live long and prosper! Also, may you be Star Trek. Just kidding. Don't be that. Unless you want to be. But mainly happy marriage. Bye bye.