Monday, January 25, 2010

colts!

Colts vs. Jets
Colts win!

J.R.

I think I lead a charmed life. I try to balance that with lots of hard work and guilt. But this is a perfect example of falling into fun.

My friend NYC John sent me a text: I’m on the plane next to a guy with Colts tickets for sale. Would you like to go?
My reply: Yes!

Details be damned. The fact that my dear mother’s birthday party was at the same time. We’ll make it work.

John got a little dose of family pre-party craziness. Buy flowers, don’t buy flowers. Buy balloons, don’t buy balloons. We finally made it to the country club and I introduced him to brother J.R. and cousin Jim. Off they went to tail gate for the game. I sent my famous salsa, Colts blue corn chips and foam finger – the only piece of Colts gear I own.

John, J.R. and Jim

An hour into the party I got a call from J.R. The folks in the seats next to him scored suite passes so the seats were open. John and I upgraded from section 635 – about three stories up – to row twenty-something from the field.

I had a wonderful time at the party and watched the kickoff at the club.

I was one of a handful of people with out Colts or Jets gear. And possibly the only one wearing a dress. 

I raced downtown (and when I say raced, I drove at a sensible speed) to Lucas Oil Stadium. J.R. parks at the Hurst Bean Lot and gave me his pass from the week before. I was able to park just yards from the stadium and stroll on in (after the metal detector and purse search of course).


The seats were awesome. So good that I kept getting distracted. Whoa -there’s someone wearing a sparkly wig. Lookie - football. Hey- jumbotron!

The game was a blast!


The rock band Foreigner played at half-time. Here is the review I wrote:
I was impressed by the logistics of getting the stage with classic rockers Foreigner perched on top out to the middle of the football field to fire out two songs and back to the sidelines in the twelve minute half-time break with no one breaking a hip.


Foreigner played Feels Like the First Time and Hot Blooded to tens of thousands of air-guitar playing, face painted, Colts jersey-wearing guys. I know the running audio must be crazy to get the sound three stories up to the cheap seats but I think they did a decent job with the audio. It looked and sounded like drummer Brian Tichy (Billy Idol and Ozzy Osbourne) was playing live. It was hard to tell with the other guys. Between front man Kelly Hansons mic stand waving and dramatic gestures and bassists Jeff Pilson’s (Dokken) wavy locks I forgot to play attention to their vocals and instruments.


Foreigner was a good band to warm us up for the main show – Super Bowl XLIV half-time entertainment The Who.

What a fun day! Thanks NYC John and Brother John Roman!


And on a side note, I took one of the best naps ever when I got some from the game. I can’t remember sleeping that well in years.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

happy birthday mama



Our dear beautiful mother celebrated her 70th birthday in style. Mom planned her own party – and occasionally I’d have a guilty twinge that we kids didn’t do the planning, but Mom has such a great style and sense of what she had a mind that I knew we couldn’t do it better. How’s that for making myself not seem like a terrible daughter?


Mom’s party was at Meridian Hills County Club and was perfect. How can you go wrong with a party that features birthday cake and Champaign and music?


Mom gathered a wonderful group of friends and family. Molly and John read a cute thing they wrote spelling out GRANDMA. I can’t remember any of the phrases they used except for the “A”s. Artist and Absolutely Perfect. I love that the grandchildren see the artistic side of Mom. I think as children we didn’t celebrate that side of her enough.

My toast to Mom centered around the theme of celebration. Mom did such a great job making everything special. I can remember every single birthday I’ve had. Mom made every single one of them special, whether I was with her or not.



Here is a perfect example of Mom’s young heart – she had us all do the Hokey Pokey at her party. It’s hard not to giggle when you’re shaking it all about.

Happy birthday Mom. I love you!

Saturday, January 23, 2010

keys

I'll totally admit that I'm a bit of a whirlygig and am always racing from project to project and place to place. An old boyfriend swore that I built a nest where ever I landed for more than ten minutes and I suppose he's right. Just looking at where I plopped down to write there is a glass of water, a banana peel, the coat I was taking to the closet when the spirit moved me to blog and a book.

I may not always look organized on the surface but my system works for me. There are a few things I pride myself on - somethings I that I can control. I've never run out of gas (knock on wood) or lost my keys (except for the whole gunpoint incident).

When I get to work I always hung them on the end of a wire file rack. They'd hang there where I could see them out of the corner of my eye, the Jesus flashlight and Hatch key chain and keys to my truck, house and three jobs swaying slightly every time I opened a drawer or grabbed a file.



Last week I got a new computer at work - a laptop with a docking station! Gone from my desk was the clunky monitor which hid a multitude of desk top sins. This prompted a desk purge. Since I'd been at Second Helpings the longest I've inherited eleven years worth of files. I shredded six bags of papers - did we really need the credit application for the oven we purchased in 1998?

This two-day project left enough room in my drawers for the files which used to live on my desktop. My desk looked like it came from the pages of an Ikea catalogue. Kim would be proud. Everything had a new home. Everything but my keys that is.

You guessed it. My keys disappeared from my desk. Gone. Vanished. And I didn't discover that they were gone until everyone else had long left work. I spent an hour dumping out my purse, taking everything from every drawer, emptying the trash and recycling and crawling over every inch of the office. I also searched my truck - in the dark below zero degree parking lot.

I finally gave up and called my boss to tell her I was going to drive the company car home. Ever since the locking myself out of the house in my pajamas incident I've had house keys stashed with various neighbors so getting in the house was no problem.

I just walked in the door when the alarm company called to report the alarm was not set. Damn it! I'd used the garage door opener to leave the building and had not set the alarm. I thought about letting it go, but decided that missing keys + lack of alarm was probably not a good combination. So I bundled back up and headed back downtown. As I was about half way there I realized the car was beeping. Lights were on and seat belt was buckled. What else could it be? I looked at the gauges with a sinking feeling. There probably should be some bars or something showing the level of fuel. Nothing. Running on empty. As much as I love my city I recognize that there are areas of town I should not be stopping in at 11:00 p.m., and I was driving though one of them.

Since I'd run out without my purse I just kept driving toward work. I'd be damned if this was going to be the day that I ran out of gas AND lost my keys. The car is a Prius that powers down when it's idle. Every time the engine switched off at a stop light I was sure it was out of gas.

I pulled into the dark parking lot and used the garage door opener to get back in the building. The door is huge, big enough to get our box trucks under. As it was going up and back down I had to kept a watchful eye to make sure no one darted into get out of the cold.

I walked up to my office to grab petty cash to buy gas when I noticed light under the woman's room door. I have those lights on a sensor to turn off after ten minutes of no motion. I hadn't been in there for hours. So I did the only sensible thing. Swung the door open and looked.

Someone had switched the switch from 'auto' to 'on.'

Now that I had myself fully creeped-out I set the alarm and darted out to the car. I drove to the nearest station, which was in an even worse area than I'd driven through. A police car followed me in and sat there while I paid and pumped gas. Thank you sir!

I went to bed with the certainty that someone had grabbed my keys by accident and they would turn back up. No such luck. I did have several helpful folks ask if I'd left them at home or in the truck. Um, no. I drove to work and let myself into the building.

Ironically on January 1st I'd made a list of things that slow me down. I'd replaced my home printer, moved the clothes to the basement and signed up for home recycling. Getting a spare truck key was next on the list.

I called the dealership where I'd purchased the truck eight years ago to ask about a new one. I was prepared for it to be over $50. Guess what? $9.5o! I'll take two please! Driving a nine year old truck with no bells or whistles is finally paying off!



While they were being cut I wandered into the waiting room. There was a popcorn machine, diet Pepsi in the cooler, WiFi, cable television and magazines! I was disappointed that it only took ten minutes for the new keys. I felt like I owed them money when I walked out.

My keys have still not turned up. Another strike against a clean desk.

Friday, January 22, 2010

ummm, hi.

The longer I don't update this blog the guiltier I feel.
Vicious circle, really.

Some updates
- the tree never got decorated, but I did enjoy the lights and the festiveness.
- the holidays were fun, I even had two days in a row off one week.
- I had a blast on New Year's Eve -- and I was the designated driver! Check out the cool party hat Cara made me! It totally made up for the lack of midnight kissing partner.



- I've been working on more organizing and cleaning and purging the house. I made dressing room in the basement and moved all of my clothes down there. Mornings are a lot easier without running back and forth and laundry is a breeze, I just have to reach over to hang up the clean clothes instead of running things upstairs to my tiny closet.
- the closet project moved furniture out of my bedroom and prompted to put my living room television on the curb. I made room for a bookcase in the living room so all of the stacks of books are off the floor.
-I bought myself a record player for Christmas! Woo hoo! I'm enjoying listening to a mixture of nostalgic stuff (Dow Jones and the Industrials anyone?) to new releases.
- I was going to take a season off from bowling, but got talked into doing it again. It is fun!
- I've stepped up my writing gigs. Which is just the opposite of what I said I'd do. I'll have two features and six CD reviews in the next issue of Ghettoblaster, the Buzzing Around Town column is still going strong and I'm writing a monthly feature for NUVO about music radio deejays. I got to actually interview my first subject on the air!

Later gator!