Long Road Home. (Day Four)

Monday
Beautiful sunrise on the road....at 5:30am.

Sharing a chocolate chip scone makes life easier.
Me: How's the coffee?
Tim: It's ok, but I like the lid. Closed, open, closed, open!
A whole disc of King of Queens makes any drive faster.
Nebraska is endless.

Food & Wine Classic / Starting Home (Day Three)

Sunday
Waking up early +a late seminar start time + a gym that doesn't open til 8 = a lazy Clare morning.
Finding out the gym lady is perpetually late til 8:45 = a glare from Clare.
Upside: the front desk called a van to take us up the mountain to a neighboring hotel miniscule workout room.
Tim ran back down the mountain. I would break my leg trying. At the very least.

Extra warm waiting in line outside for Susan Feniger's Irresistable Street Food Seminar.
Susan was hung over, yet very high energy crazy.

Made cucumber melon cocktails, an egyptian lentil starch dish, Indian dish with more cilantro than I thought existed, and a lentil melon salad.
Right outside the tent we shared a mini CP burger (stellar) and sweet potato fries.

Lululemon isn't open on Sundays, and I'd waited ALL weekend to go, bummer.
$4.85 a gallon in Aspen
On the road to Denver by 12:15!

MC Yogi playing, driving with the windows down through the mountains.
Took Tim's picture at the Continental Divide.

Lunch @ Dam Brewery in Dillon (yay soft pretzels!)

Traffic going into Denver
80 minutes longer getting into Denver.

Wandered the 16th Street Mall downtown for an hour.
I love the Love Denver store.
End of Pride week brought out some pretty entertaining characters.
We could see the wildfire smoke even from Denver.

First Whole Foods was too small to properly stock up. The second worked JUST fine :-)
Thank god we brought the big cooler.
Our hotel is exactly like the Hotel SO in New Zealand, so bubble gum modern. Bright shiny plastic and more colors than Tokyo.

But the gym suits me just fine.
Our 5:30am leave time will come far too soon.

Mind Spew.

Today's thoughts come from the fact that this is the second night in a row that Tim has worked extra late.

1) I saw Frau walking on 12th today. That woman has clearly made a deal with the devil and cheated death.

2) Sometimes its scary when I realize how little doctors know. Going to Africa takes a lot of medications. Doctor #1 gave me azithromycin, saying that cipro wasn't broad enough and wouldn't work. Doctor #2 said the exact opposite, that cipro would kill everything and the other was super restricted in working. Ugh. Although Doctor #1 also tried to give me several pointless injections as well, sooo.... Doctor #2 it is. Extra bonus points to him because he gives me Xanax.

3) I got my car back from it getting fixed. Someone backed into it and basically the entire door needed replacing, but yet, when I got it fixed, the sealing wasn't sealing, there is a GIANT portion of paint missing, and there is a grinder scratch in the back door. They've always done such a good job, way to totally slack on that one. But I should be getting my new car next week sometime. Which leads me into....

4) My dad got called by the dealer who is looking for my new car today. To explain that was supposed to be blue, is really a charcoal gray. That's fine, Charcoal is dealable. Silver is not. Not the point though. Apparently the lister of the cars for the dealership is colorblind, and basically all the cars are listed as the wrong color. You would think that they'd have someone else do that part.....

BUT THEN. I got a call back from my dad saying that this charcoal car isn't even meant for me at all. Somehow my dealer had left the other dealership (seller) with the WRONG car. The seller said gave it to them, said it was the right one, and let them take it out of the state all the way back here. Vin numbers don't match. Totally wrong car. Crazy careless much?

5) Without a diagram, its virtually impossible to explain this story in full, but I shall summarize as best as I can. Car parked in a no parking zone. And even if it was, it would be parallel parking, but the car is angle parked, halfway in the street, in the red zone, and inside is a 90 year old woman eating a sandwich without a care in the world. Like, "Oh! Im hungry for tuna melt, let me pull over RIGHT HERE" People should have to take a yearly driving test after the age of 70. Suck it up old people, it takes 15 minutes, if you can't wait that long, you shouldn't be driving anyway.

6) I am currently starting my fifth episode of the night of Ally McBeal. Something tells me at least six is likely, possibly seven.

Lady Gaga and the Nashua Police.

Ok, so I have yet to blog about San Francisco. I have yet to blog about my weekend in Adventureland. But those must wait, because frankly, this story is much better.

Monday, Tim and I headed up north 3+ hours to the land of sheer insanity. Also known as the Lady Gaga concert. Yes, laugh if you must, but we were both ridiculously pumped. And I knew coming out of it that I would either hate her completely or love her that much more. Well, the show was amazing, the production value was ridiculous, and she is just fantastic. Her fans are completely off their rockers, but this is the midwest we are talking about. Three hours of her prancing around in crazy amounts of outfits and dancers without a single intermission, she's talented....I digress.

The real story is after the concert, after the first three hours of the drive home. I had planned on driving, but Tim loaded himself up on so much Red Bull and other energy drinks (he claimed he smelled like vitamins all day yesterday) that he easily drove the whole way as I was in and out of sleepland in the passenger side.

I get woken up to Tim saying cops are behind him. I say whatever, well, no, the lights are on. Ok, we get to the side of the road, turn the dome light on and wait. Both of us looking out driver side window.

*taptaptap* on the passenger window nearly scares the crap out of me. Ok, cool, I start my heart back up. Super doofy looking dude. If you have seen Psych, this cat looks like Buzz McNabb. Super nice, but dumber than a brick. "Caught you going a bit fast under the bridge back there...."

Pause for second heart attack as magically another cop appears at Tim's window as we are both looking at the one on my side. Scaring the total bejesus out of us again. They start asking us normal questions, Why are you out at 2:30, where ya been, where ya going...ok, fine. But then it turns into questions about our house, is this where you live now, how long you been there, and so on. Like in depth questions. Strange. All the while being really nice, including asking about my air freshner in the glove compartment? Its in a sunglasses case, but the guy was like, are those sunglasses in there? ZERO reason for him to think otherwise. Just odd fellows.

In the meantime, I haven't cleaned out my registrations or insurance papers out of the glove box since at least 2003 (I know, because I found proof of insurance of Feb '03). I have insurance card in my wallet, Tim's got his license, but I cant find my registration for the life of me. The sticker on the car is right, I just cant find the paper. I search, pulling handfuls of papers onto my lap, while they go back and check things out.

They come back, tell us we are getting a warning (not even a written one, mind you, just verbal) for speeding. And that its ok I cant find my registration, but is it ok if they search the car. Good lord. Its 2:30 in the morning, I am exhausted, they clearly don't even suspect anything, and they say they are just doing random searches and we got the luck of the draw. Great. If they hadn't been the NICEST cops I have ever experienced, and letting us out of a $120 ticket...fine, search away.

It takes me awhile to get all the papers off my lap, shoes back on (cause who sleeps in a car with shoes on?!) and out onto the freezing highway. In the time that Officer Doofy is searching the car, Officer Marinewannabe decides he needs to chat. In this chat he clearly ellaborates on drug bust stories, but also asks if Lady Gaga is a "good band". Live under a rock much? It takes at least 15 minutes to search every nook and cranny of the car. Doofy can't find the trunk latch, despite it being in the exact same place as every car i have been in, labeled with a PICTURE of a trunk, and says push. So he has to be shown, searches the trunk, and then searches under the hood? Yeah, ok.....

They let us go, and about to pull away, Doofy runs up to our car, tapping all the way down, and wants to make sure he closed the hood of the car well enough.....

Oh Nashua Police. Its only because you are so nice and have literally nothing better to do that I didn't want to punch you in the nuts....

Dumb Drivers and a Love of Olives....

Today is a day of instances that make you audibly growl. Even though no one can hear you and it doesn't change anything and it really isn't that big of a deal, but the growl makes you feel better.

Instance #1: CF Cops are lazy. I was on my way to work, about to come to a green light, heading straight. A truck was turning left from the other direction (would cross in front of me), figured he had enough time before I got there, turned. Ok, fine, I'll just break a little bit once I hit the light so he can make it through. But then the car behind him decided to turn left too, RIGHT in front of me. I slammed the breaks and honked. Then I see the cop car right next to me, stopped at the light. I figure my honk was at the very least an alert that something was not ok. But nope. The cop turned and totally ignored the perp! Arg.

Instance #2: Almost to work on University. I am in the middle lane. A block before the driveway to the office there is construction filling the right lane. I stay to the middle lane because I will have to get immediately over. And all of a sudden I hear this blaring horn at me from a guy that was trying to merge? I dont know even, he was behind me or to the side of me. I would have let him in front to get out of the construction lane, but he wasnt even in my vision. So hes laying on the horn, and then tailgates me in the middle lane. I finally get to the right lane when I can and he gives me killer glare as he speeds past. I reciprocated. Gr.

Instance #3: Lunchtime. Dad wants Subway, so off I go! I give in to my grumbling stomach and get a salad. Just getting a salad already costs an extra buck. Makes no sense, its a sandwich MINUS the bread, but they ADD an extra dollar to the cost. But then, heres the conversation:

Worker 1: What kind of cheese do you want?
Me: No cheese.
*ten second pause*
Worker 1: What kind of cheese did you say you wanted?

Worker 2: What else do you want on it?
Me: *lists numerous veggies*...and lots of olives.
Worker 2: *puts on proper veggies until the olives. She COUNTS six olive slices onto the salad despite the LONG line behind me.*
Me: Can I have some more olives?
Worker 2: I can only give you six olives unless you want to pay an extra quarter
Me: Fine, Ill pay the quarter, more olives
Worker 2: *proceeds to count 4 more olive slices onto the salad*

GROOWWWLLLL.

I'm such a whiner. But the rest of the day has been fine. Just those little irks.

Making chilli tonight. First time. No meat, no beans. Yum. Gonna make a broccoli salad and granola later this week. Pumped about the granola part...