Truffles and coffee breakfast

It's been a long week, but my first round of exams are over. In celebration, Heather (plus 2 baby boys in her belly), Robin and I went to the Girls on The Run Fundraiser.

Give this girl some wine and a silent auction and there is bound to be trouble. We, of course, were the last table to leave, and scored all of the leftover desert. From across the room I hear

'Amanda! Do you want a plate of leftovers?'

'A plate? I have tupperware in the car!'

Seriously, whatever I spent in the silent auction, was totally made up in cheesecake and truffles.

I have zero shame.

On another note, a company called Sears Automotive seems to be taking their sweet time admitting their mistake with Beck. They offered me a rental car.....starting today I'm telling them I want an RV to replace my camper. Perhaps a tour bus?

Amandaland on tour. Sweet Jesus I could be a reality TV show.

My date this weekend

I'll see you kids on Wednesday. Unless you want to talk hepatic flexures or barium enemas.....which trust me, its not as funny as you think.

How we met

In watching GMA this morning I heard one of the common couples question:

'How did you meet?'

And since I have no other stories to tell you, and 3 exams to study for, I thought I would kill some time and share my favorite 'how we met' story.

You know the Youngin story, and Ponch story, which are both funny 'how we met', but.....

My personal favorite, going way back, post blog.....Garret. It may not have lasted long at all, but he and I met outside of a bar in Winter Park. My second night in the ski town to be exact....so November of 2000, when I was injury free and a ski bum. Lack of oxygen at 9100 feet gave me no preparation at all for how quickly I was to get drunk that night. Despite the fact that I was just getting out of my undergrad drinking days, and had done a keg stand at my going away party three days prior.

Outside of The Pub, the snow was coming down like I had never seen before, and my upstairs neighbor Dave and I start talking about ninjas. (I always believed that I would make a good ninja) One thing leads to another, and under the hypnozation of the snow I lay out the....

'You pick him Dave and I bet that I can jump and kick over his head.'

Poor guy never saw it coming.

Dave grabbed Garret who was the next poor sap to stumble out of the bar. I stepped back in the ice and snow, closing one eye to size him up....or stop the falling snow and tawaca combo from making me dizzy.....one or the other....

I took one big step, swung my arms, twisted, lost all footing on the ice and kicked the guy straight in the face. Blood went everywhere, and I landed on my back thankful that I wasn't full air spinning anymore. Dave and I were laughing hysterically, Garret...not so much. He was screaming something about me breaking his nose.

But that is honestly how we met.

If all else fails.....

I just love this. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Still no movement on the bus. Insurance has been filed by the 'oops we forgot to put oil in your bus' company. Wednesday I am calling for the rental car that they offered me, but didn't take because I have the Jetta. Maybe if I start spending their money they will start moving faster. Heather wants me to ask for a new washer and dryer. Hummmm....

Good Night Nurse

These fools made me shoot green beer out of my nose last night.

At around 3am my stomach made this hideous noise that woke me up......

I think it was screaming something about green dye #7......

Anyways, I rolled over onto something.....what the hell is my phone doing in the bed?

Oh god no please don't tell me I talked to someone last night. Oh call history....Shit.

I rolled back over and came face to face with a granola bar on my pillow.

Good Night St. Paddy's Day Nurse.

I was dragging my feet today....not really wanting to go pay money to pick up both of my cars. In fact I had procrastinated until around noon and even had a beer with lunch to lessen the sting of the bill.
When I went to talk to the bus mechanic the topic immediately goes to engine replacement.

'Shit you have got to be kidding me'

Nope. You can see here (as we are looking down into the engine from the back of the bus) that is where your rod used to be....

'And whats all that?'

'Well, normally you couldn't see in there, but this (hands me a chunk of metal) blew off and that is the inside of your engine.'

'Oh.'

He gives me this look that I can recognize as the idiot look when he says....'There should be oil in there. Next time check your oil.'

'Excuse me? There was no oil in there?'

'Nope. If there was oil, it would have blown everywhere. See here....dry. Made your engine seize up. Your lucky you didn't catch on fire'

But that's impossible. I just had the oil changed yesterday. See look, I still have the receipt in the front.

'Looks like someone forgot to fill you up with oil after they drained it.'

Oh hell to the no. Out came the black woman as I grab a mini box and start throwing broken bus engine parts in it...'looks like somebody is going to get fired and buy me a new engine.

Star swipe to me going into a very popular nationwide store with my box of metal and my receipt from yesterday. Black woman out in FULL force. After all, you know the flack I got from so many people last night and today?
'Well that's what you get for driving a 79 bus. meh me meh meh me.'
I honestly started to question the greatness Beck and my safety. Maybe it is a bad idea that i am by myself....

I walk in and find 5 men all in company work shirts looking at me. A take big strong black woman steps towards them.

'Can we help you?'....another turns around....'Back again?'

Yea. May I speak with the manager.

(the guy in the middle speaks) That would be me. (he doesn't move, and either does anyone around him)

Ok then. So yesterday, you guys changed my oil, and drained it and put a filter on, and didn't put the oil back in. Here is a box of parts from my blown engine. (I hold it out as they all look down.....quite a few ohh's are added here and then everyone scattered.)

'Lets come into my office'

Um, ya think?

Did you ever read that book when you were little about the no good very bad day?

My Jetta got the window shot out by a bb last night

I was delayed leaving for Moab until 2

10 miles into Utah something blew up in the bus. And when I say blew up I seriously mean smoking duck in the engine blew up.

I had no cell service where Beck blew up.

I sat on the side of the road for an hour until I was picked up by another VW bus with a family of 4 and a 3 legged dog.

Ohhhhh Beck!

A minor glitch yesterday as I was tuning up Beck for a road trip.....

By tuning of course I mean driving it to get the oil changed.

Sometimes, when I'm driving the bus, the turn signals don't work. I found if I turn the hazards ON, then OFF, the turn signals will work again.

Don't question the madness. It just works.

Star swipe to yesterday when i pulled the hazard lights and lost all electrical.

Awwwee Shiiiiit.

Two tree hugging hippies later, it's unanimous...

No one knows why it isn't working.

The front dash has been removed, the piece I pulled apart has now been zip tied back together, and all I have is hazards. I debate on whether or not I can live with this permanently.... Watch the mileage....use hand motions out the window when driving.....

OK maybe not.

So I drive out to a new mechanic. And explain what I did, and forewarn him about the zip ties....

An hour later I have all lights and gauges. Turns out that thing was broken....no matter how many zip ties to hold it together, it was never going to complete the circuit.

The mechanic says to me: Ya know I'm impressed, most bus owners come it with everything totally torn apart and an mess....you actually knew what was wrong.

'Yea, well, I'm not stoned'

Good point.

Elevation ummmm?

It's Spring Break 2007 boys and girls. And I am
gluten for punishment.

As if Thursdays treadmill 'incident' wasn't painful enough.

Hey lets strap in some super skinny skis with race wax on them and see if we cant seriously frighten other people on the trail!

I look like a gangley chicken trying to skate ski.

Look at the dog. Poor thing thinks "Lady, I do NOT know CPR, and I can NOT drive a car. Pull it together crazy chicken legs!"

Spring break 07 Whooo hoooo! I have a week to kill and

the plan thus far is.....
get out as much as possible......
write a paper.....
study for some tests.....
and get the bus on the road.

Sweet.

I do love college spring break.

treadmill dance

In an effort to encourage my high set goals of a triathlon this year, I have been spending more time then usual at the college rec center. Now, I know what your thinking.....college rec center, and every image that has popped into your mind, I actually see the live version of.

With my I-pod delicately shoved in my ears and music a pumpin I have to constantly fight the urge to sing out loud.

They can't hear the music. You are not a pop star. Now get through the song and don't throw up during crunches....

The treadmill is usually an off limits machine for me. If I want to run, I will go outside. That has always been my train of thought. Today? No train. Not only did I get on the treadmill, I was slamming with not only adrenaline, but Rage Against the Machine when I did. Still resisting the urge to sing loudly with the fast pace, I get a few minutes of fast walking in, and then slam my finger down on the speed button. I just couldn't stop myself.

Maybe 2 minutes into my all out sprint speed I realized:

a) This is waaaaay to fast for me. Dear god I'm going to break the mile record if I don't slow down.

b) Crap I'm going to have a heart attack.

Somewhere in my lack of oxygen to the brain I reach up to the slow down control button and tangle my ipod wires on my arm knocking it from the safe haven of a cup holder. My cute little green i pod is taking turns bouncing off of the 80 mph treadmill and the back of my calf. Still sprinting like a crackhead running from the police, I'm now trying to keep the pace, swing the ipod back towards me using the cords from my ears, all the while trying to focus my eyes on where that damn button has hid.......about maybe 3 minutes of flailing arms and legs one earpiece falls out I realize......

I am yelling out profanities.

Loud because of the volume of music in my ears, and very bad...very very bad words.

Mid 'Oh you mother'...I hear myself because the other earpiece is out of my ear from the wild swinging of wires, and screaming metal is no longer hiding my vulgarness from me. Still at a wild sprint, my split seconds are met by
....the price of my ipod as it continues to take a beating....
....the visual of every home video that I have seen of people flying off the ends of treadmills and slamming into walls....
....and the shocking looks I am getting from the ENTIRE line of people on treadmills and ellipticals to my left.

The profanity doesnt stop. Sweet.

Thank god for the ability of my brain to recognize a giant red panic STOP button directly in the center of the treadmill. I smacked that sucker topping it off by yelling

'NO WAMMIES!'

Instant spaghetti legs as my trama slows. Everybody's in on the show now. I'm gasping for air off the treadmill now, elbows bent with my hands locked on arms over my head. Still only having the wires of the ipod it's smacking me in the stomach, arms have lost all feeling, all the while knowing I have yelled out every bad word ever made, plus made some nice combinations. It ended, and I am instantly faced with the fact that if confronted I am going to have to claim turrets and continue my workout yelling out bad words.

I am committed to this plan and OK with it.

Dork of 1999

Just recently I heard from a guy I knew in college. Actually when I first met him I had a HUGE crush on him. Amy will testify. The two of us went up on a curb and into oncoming traffic because he was running down the street without a shirt on. Almost killed the both of us.

Good god that boy glistened in the sun.

Ahem. Sorry.

Hearing from him reminded me of a funny story. To be more specific, of one of my MANY uncool moments in front of boys. A time when I was neither as smooth nor as cool as I am now.. Oh please god let me be cooler by this now.

Anyways I don't have anything to write about so I thought you might enjoy a story......

Starswipe to 1999

South Carolina nights can have that warm/cool feeling around 9pm. That: you can't sleep because it's too warm and there is electricity in the air, but outside a storm is coming, so there is a mysterious coolness to the dark. Something about that pre-storm weather always made me want to run. (note* take into consideration that the pup and I were both 8 years younger then)
We took to the storm, but no more then two blocks from returning home, South Carolina turned on another thing it was famous for. Torrential downpours.

THAT folks is how I found myself under the awning of his apartment.

Here is where my cool level came into play when he invited me in until the rain let up. We chatted for just a bit as we knew each other from being students in the art department, although he was in the type A graphic design, and I was a first year photography major, a mess of kayos with a white puppy that followed me everywhere..

In my 'oh my god I can't believe I am in HIS house', he started explaining something about his brother working on a star wars movie, and

'yea, uh huh, I know exactly what your talking about with the spaceships, and sure the TS 180.....yea I know which one your talking about, its amaaaazing'

I'm such a dork.

Somewhere in all of my trying to make it believable blabber, he shows me (note* I'm getting the 10 foot apartment tour at this point, and am standing in his bedroom drenched and looking like a skinny wet rat) a collection of star wars space ship memorabilia on single shelves assorting the wall.

'Oh yea, and that one is soooo rare, uh huh'

Then I did it. I reached up with my uncool skinny drenched in monsoon water hand and touched a spaceship. And the shelf collapsed. Onto the shelf below it, and to the one below it. Seriously, spaceships were whizzing past my head as I screamed out and tried to catch anything that was falling in the downpour of star wars.

Wait was that chewbacca?

Damn it i knew something, but when the rare 780T-star whizzer or whatever the hell its called, hit the floor I knew that my moment was lost. I went to speak and something else crashed behind me. In my shocked-panicked- I wish I could combust into flams on the spot, I opted to put my hand over my mouth and stand there wide eyed looking at him. He said nothing, just stood there with his mouth open as I started slowly backing my way out of the room, crunching broken aircraft as I went.

I opted for the monsoon over spending another moment in the embarrasing cronicals of amandaland, quickly deciding that my crush was over the second i shook a wing of something off my running shoe as I welcomed the rain.

Days going by

Days like today serve as a reminder for me how much things can change in time.





A picture perfect before and after of a year.






The good and the bad, and even the 80 year old man that lapped me in the pool AGAIN this week.





Me, the pup, and everyone else in Grand Junction decided to take advantage of the lift from the cold we've had for the last FOREVER, and headed out the front door. Mainly just a need for a wind breaker, I drastically over layered and hit the road in search of some clarity from the overcrowding of radiation information residing in my brain. It's all becoming just one big run on sentence.



After climbing up the switchbacks, I'm fairly confident that the overcrowding was taken over by a massive slip and slide of sweat coming from my skull, and oddly enough, my brain feels much clearer as a result.






Weeks are flying by, and if it were'nt for the pile of clothes and scrubs migrating it's way from one end of my bedroom to the other, I'd swear this week was the last.
















A year is a year, and I'll take the new changes. Regardless of how my body feels, or what my heart yearns for. The wise words of 4 year old Galen Mayfield as we sat on swing sets in cadence one night still crosses my mind. Having not said a word, he drug his feet to a stop and looked up at the sky.......

'we're not getting any littler ya know'