Everybody learns from disaster

Mishaps would also be a good name for this post. But using the same title for every post gets old. And “Life” gets redundant.

I was getting sick of no sunshine and too much being cold, so I texted my mom, “Can I fly home next Saturday and just go to the beach? All day?” completely expecting she'd text me back a smile and something like, “don't you have to work?” Instead, she texted me back, “You're always welcome to come home. The direct Friday night and then Sunday morning?”

I texted Brid. She'd want to go. We texted each other all morning Friday about how the random snow and wind was getting us even more excited about the beach. I left work and headed home, getting so excited about sand and sun.

And then my wave of the usual mishaps hit. We were going to leave at 2, Brid calls at 2:15 and says that she and our grandparents haven't left yet. We don't need to be out til 3, so I've got time to run errands. She's going to call when they leave Spanish Fork, 15 minutes away from me, so even if I'm in the middle of something, I'll have time to run home and still not keep them waiting for me.

Fat chance.

I ran to the bank to drop off some checks, realized I was starving and asked Brid what she wanted for lunch, and ran to Arby's (the girl works at Arby's, I don't know why she'd want to eat there, but I'm a fan, I won't argue). She wanted a soda, and her meal came with a really big one. Probably a normal size, but the cup holders in Krista's jeep are not very deep, so it looked enormous, and needless to say, didn't fit in the cup holder very well... So when I flew across three lanes of traffic to get into the turning lane I needed, the soda did not stay in the cup holder, but flew across my lap and hit the floor, exploding Pepsi all over my feet and the floor of the jeep. My feet are soaking in a Pepsi flood, as is the carpet of the jeep, and we're supposed to be going to the airport. Even if it were my jeep, I couldn't leave the Pepsi soaking all weekend, but what was I supposed to do with 20 minutes? I was pretty proud of my quick thinking. And a lot of years of learning how to clean dark fluids out of light carpet- thanks Dad and younger siblings. I ran to one of those car cleaning places with the car wash and the vacuums. I used the first cycle on the self-wash, using the wand to spray off the mat and floor of the inside of the jeep. Then, I reversed it to shopvac out everything as fast as I could. That floor was beautiful. And I really hope somebody else used the rest of that free car wash. I was so impressed that everything looked so good (and wasn't sticky), but didn't really have time to admire it. Or do the rest of the car, like I really would've loved. I should mention that in between rinsing and shopvac-ing, I get a text from Brid that says, “Remember how I was going to call you when we left? Oops. We're already on our way.” I'm racing back to my apartment, glad the jeep is clean but worried I'm not going to be fast enough. Everything I'm taking (my bag with my swimsuit and... toothbrush?) is sitting on my couch, ready to go, I just need to be there. So I run to the door, and the door's locked. Of course. I should probably mention the other thing in that bag besides my toothbrush and swimsuit is the key chain with my house key on it. I was going around the corner, no one else was home, I just didn't think I really needed them... of course, someone would come home and leave and lock the door in the time I was gone. Like this is her fault, ha. So I called the Foxwood office, not knowing if anyone is there, being completely unaware of their office hours or if they have anyone that will come unlock the door. I got lucky. I ran to the office, they have a key I can borrow for a second, I run back to my apartment and my sister is running to meet me. My grandparents only had to wait a minute or two, but really? With all that time I had? Good heavens...

(Don't worry. Still haven't told Krista this story ;)

We flew home, they wouldn't let us sit together, so I threw a note to Bridian and the guy next to her sat on it, the tiny white-haired old lady next to me was trying to force sandwiches down my throat and feed me the whole trip... you know. Uneventful.

We went driving around Friday night, Brid and Jada had a photo shoot in front of the Signature Grand while I rekindled my relationship with my longboard. We were out til 3 or so, then came home and, Brid and I still being on mountain daylight time and Jada wanting to stay up with us, it was well after 4 when we finally collapsed. Brid and I got up to be at the beach before 11, and we stayed til 3. We both fell asleep in the sand. We refused to bring sunblock, planning on being lobsters but knowing it would be worth the tan that stuck around afterwards. We didn't, however, account for the fact that we're not used to Florida sun anymore. Nor did we plan on my mom wanting to take family pictures when we got back. So we are tinted pink, closer to red, in those family photos. Unfortunately (or fortunately for my mother) the sunburn hadn't fully set in yet. As the night wore on, we turned darker shades of red. I started shaking from cases of chills about midnight. When we got up to go to the airport, I could barely walk. Brid, lucky duck, hasn't lived in Utah long enough to lose as much pigment. She burned, and while I still am sorry for how much pain she's in, she didn't burn like I did. I really wanted to be in sweats, didn't have any, really did not want to be in anything even sort of fitting, and the only person who had some in my house was my dad. Yes, my dad is 6''6 and 250 lbs. Yes, they are too long for him. Yes, I wore them. No, they didn't stay on throughout the day. Of course, we didn't just make the direct, but instead flew to Minneapolis and Denver and then Salt Lake. So I had to clutch the sweats with one hand all day. Brid and I were quite the sight. I sincerely apologize to anyone that knew us at those airports or anyone that might have wanted to know us (Luis, Ben...). I was a baby about it too, so the bag on my shoulder causing blisters was giving me reason to whine every step I took (see, it's over and I'm still whining!), I had my longboard hooked on one arm (my brother and I put a coat of linseed oil on it while I was home) and it was still a little oily, which got on everything, also giving me reason to complain, and I just all around hurt. The two of us had to laugh at each other when we realized we were down the other's throat about accidentally bumping the other person. It was a great/miserable day. I got home, soaked in aloe, and fell asleep.

After 11, 12, maybe 13 hours (I crashed at 6, I woke up at 7:30, but when you roll over onto a sunburn...), I still can barely walk. I look like a burn victim, and my face, of all things, is starting to blister. Ibuprofen and aloe went with me to work, in addition to the liter of water that was completely consumed in the first hour I was there. Yuck.

Overall, fantastic trip to the beach :) here's to the rest of the week, wretched peeling, and the next bottle of aloe.

(Mountain Daylight Time- there is a difference between Mountain Standard Time and Mountain Daylight Time. I had no idea. Huge fiasco at work involving this minute difference and our ignorance of this fact, so now, I'm educated. Please don't let this ever, ever happen to you.)

Mishaps

I wrote this in November. It still describes every day of my life.

There's not a theme to this. Just how the past few days have gone.

Last week was a blur of teaching classes and riding buses. Getting off at the wrong stops, Jay Sean making sure I didn't miss the bus, being sprayed down by inefficient sprinklers, finding out my kids' books had been written in before I bought them, learning that the room we had scheduled hadn't been scheduled right... the mishaps not unfamiliar to my life. Friday I tutored a student in geometry, which was interesting because I haven't formally studied geometry in years, so the brief refresher course made me wonder why I hated it in eighth grade. And then the girl asked me about proofs.
Oh yeah.

Saturday Jada and I went to Disney World for her birthday. Gosh, it was so much fun. Of course, we got up at 6am so we could leave by 6:30 and didn't get on the road til almost 8. Only after forgetting the tickets and having to turn around and get them. Then we got on the turnpike and ended up sitting in the middle of it, with the car off, waiting for the firetruck and ambulance and the people clearing the burning car off the road. That was actually pretty fun. We made friends with the lady in the truck next to us (she liked that we were playing our music way too loud with our windows rolled down. She told us.) and we watched people wander around, being curious, and we laughed at how many different people were out on the turnpike that day. People in their pajamas, a lady with a dog, the lady who we thought was headed to the temple because of the white dress hanging in the backseat of her car but then she pulled out a box of cigarettes... On the road again, we got to Disney World and got a fantastic spot right in front of the main gate. Of course, then I forgot to put the parking receipt in the window, so while Jada stood in line to grab tickets, I had to run back out to the car... lucky it was close! We ran around all day, riding roller coasters, running into people, cartwheeling on bridges, having random people wish Jada a happy birthday (and a random garbage can?), I got a nice family to sing to her... when we left that night we were exhausted, and still had the three hour drive home. Which turned into an eight hour drive home. A serious blunder. For another day, when I can laugh at it. We got home at 4:30, I had to be up 3 hours later for a meeting at the church, which ran until church started, and I ended up running around until 6 or so that night. I finally collapsed on my bed and slept for twelve hours. Then woke up, was awake for a couple of hours, then collapsed again.

There wasn't a theme to this. And then I realized that I only gave details on the mishaps. My life's full of them. I don't ever have a story where nothing goes wrong. I guess it's a good thing I see them as adding flavor to what may be ordinary events.

Oh. Guess I don't have those either.

playlisting

I have a file on every single computer I touch more than once a week called "Music Projects." Playlisting is a verb. It's what I do when I hear more than one good song on the radio while flipping stations. I keep writing parts of this one down, so here's a good place to have all the parts meet. Mostly, I wanted to play with my ability to post downloadable songs.

Bonding With Jasmine

1. Be Okay- Ingrid Michaelson
2. Bulletproof- La Roux
   
3. Heaven Can Wait- We The Kings
4. Always- Blink 182
5. All For You- Sister Hazel
   
6. Naturally- Selena Gomez
7. Someday- Rob Thomas
8. Sweet Dreams- Beyoncé
9. I Won't- Colbie Caillat
10. Hot Air Balloon- Owl City
11. Solo- Iyaz
    
12. Africa- Karl Wolf (Toto tribute?)
13. Halfway Gone- Lifehouse
14. Decisions, Decisions- The Starting Line
    
15. Breakeven- The Script
16. Hey Soul Sister- Train
17. Happy- NeverShoutNever!
    
18. Ghost- Parachute
19. Sunburn- Owl City
    
20. Soldier- Ingrid Michaelson
21. Paper Gangsta- Lady Gaga
22. Your Love Is My Drug- Ke$ha
23. Story of A Boy- Between The Trees
    

Pazookies & Corndogs

Every so often I miss being a freshman. Just for a second, and just parts of it. Just the doing the craziest things and not thinking anything of responsibility parts. The realizations that come day to day of recognizing I'm an adult aren't usually happy ones, unfortunately. Of course, those realizations do always come when I realize the consequences- financially, socially, spiritually, timing, etc.- of an action almost as instantly as I think about the action itself, and the result is the conclusion that these actions are often spontaneous, somewhat reckless things.

I have a fantastic group of friends that I met my freshman year, and they all encouraged this sort of decision making. Fortunately, we all had the good sense not to do anything incredibly stupid or with lasting negative consequences, but we still had a great time doing whatever it was. I guess it's fair to say that spontaneity and bad judgment don't always guarantee a good time... but still. We learned a lot from each other then, and now that they are all home from missions, we continue to learn a lot from each other. It just takes on a whole different meaning now that every one of us is at the stage of "what's next in my life?" Interesting how that occasionally influences our view of "responsibility." Who knew.

So when we all had a plan to visit one of these friends' aunts on a Friday night, and at the last minute that plan fell through, we still had every intention of doing something fun, but what to do? A movie, everyone was tired. Sometimes that change in perspective has made our idea of fun a lot more complex- we can't do something like just watch a movie without thinking we're boring, the activity can't be completely wasting time, it has to show some sort of planning on our part... I don't know what it is. Lately we're not quite as spontaneous. So when Jordan called me tonight and said, "We're on our way home. We're going to the Hot Pots. Right now. You coming?" I was a little bit frustrated. Leave it to them to be spontaneous when I actually tried making plans, they weren't working out, and I was determined to make those plans work. I love impulsive, especially when coming from people who aren't characteristically so. Hot Pots had been my idea in the first place, and I was so mad they would even consider going without me! I told him that I couldn't take the joke from him. I had plans. What was I supposed to do? The phone switched hands. James started, "Alyssa, this is my serious voice." ...James seems the most rational of all of us. When is he not using his serious voice? "We're driving home, and we want to go to the Hot Pots as soon as we get there. I'm being impulsive, and I don't do impulsive. You should take advantage of this." "Ahhh..." I called and rescheduled the not-working-out-so-hot plans for another day that they'd work better. And we were driving to Monroe. 2 1/2 hours away. So we could go hot tubbing in the middle of nowhere. And I could feed that urge to be impulsive I've been feeling for weeks.

This idea came about 8PM. On a Saturday night. So what actually happened? The guys dropped me off to grab my swimsuit, they came back to pick me up. We went back to their apartment. They turned on Miss Congeniality. We went to Wendy's at 11:30. We sat in one of the BYU parking lots and ate french fries. We talked about Lady Gaga, how Andy actually knew who she was when Poker Face started playing on the radio, about Saltare on America's Best Dance Crew, about how even though Gabe judges me for having "Telephone" as my ringtone, he still thinks she's pretty talented, and they dropped me off before midnight. And I had a great night. I came away thinking I have the greatest friends in the world, and not just those I spent time with tonight. Clearly, our definition of fun isn't that complex.

Again I'm reminded, with a grin, that being an adult doesn't mean less fun. Just flexible definitions. And a greater demand for creativity.

Hot Pots story next weekend?