if you're wondering if i sang john denver songs to myself all week, the answer is yes

**I wrote this post while sitting in the airport on Wednesday night.  My laptop died before I could publish it, so SPOILER ALERT I made it home early this morning and am now clicking publish from my home sweet home.**

Well, last we talked I had a freshly injured eye and animpending trip to Denver. 

I tried to go to bed early on Saturday night, but I had trouble falling asleep and then at 1 a.m., our power went out, which woke me up because it meant the fans shut off and the temperature immediately rose eight thousand degrees.  It came back on a few minutes later, only to go off again at 3 a.m.  It was out much longer that time, and at about 3:03 on July 22nd I discovered that Matt and I are vastly different when it comes to how we handle middle of the night power outages.  I laid there thinking of cool things like glaciers and popsicles and willed myself to fall asleep.  Matt leaped out of bed, looked out all of the windows to see if he could see if a fallen tree or downed line had caused the outage, and then got back in bed and asked me what I thought about the stocks that we currently own and the status of our retirement accounts.

I can't even talk about those things during daytime hours after eight solid hours of sleep, there is no way I can make a middle of the night analysis of such topics.

Before I knew it, it was the crack of 4:45 and my alarm was going off.  I got ready and was at the airport by 6:15.  I parked in economy parking, and what I didn’t account for was having to take a shuttle to actually drive me from the lot to the airport.  I got there, checked in, and then rode the escalator upstairs only to see the security line stretched back as far as the eye could see and hear the TSA agent yell to everyone about being short staffed.

It was about 7:05 by then, but I got in line and there was a sign on the wall that said from that point, it would take one hour to get through security.

My plane was boarding at 7:55 and taking off at 8:25, so I was cutting it about three hours closer than I really preferred.  But I tried not to panic and it ended up all working out, and I walked right up to my gate with literally ONE minute to spare.

I’ve never flown by myself before, which was something I didn’t think too much about until it came time to hoist my carry on suitcase into the overhead compartment.  I may have over packed by about 35 pounds.  It took two tries and I am not kidding when I say that people in the seats below me actually covered their heads.

I was in a middle seat, and the man to my left was wearing a GIGANTIC championship ring.  I could tell it was a baseball ring because it had a baseball diamond on it, and he was wearing a hat that said World Series 2017.  All signs pointed to a World Series champ being in my midst, and my hypothesis was confirmed when the drink cart came by and Mr. Baseball ordered a cocktail, and the flight attended told him the drink was on the house and gave him a fist bump.

I spent the rest of the flight concocting this story in my head about how he was so famous and when we landed I would ask him about the ring and then for his autograph, and I couldn’t wait for Matt’s reaction when I told him I flew to Denver next to a World Series champion.  Never mind the fact that we are smack in the middle of baseball season, or it's probably unusual for a World Series winner to be flying in coach.

So, we finally landed and I asked him about his ring and my dreams were immediately crushed because the ring was actually from a college baseball tournament.

He could have just told me he had been in the World Series because I totally would have believed him.

I managed to get my carry on out of the overheard compartment without dislocating my shoulder, and headed off to the hotel.  Unfortunately the weather wasn’t the best, which limited our exploring a bit, but we decided to explore downtown for dinner. 

After a bad night, a 4:45 wake up call, and a two hour time change, I almost fell asleep in my pork tacos.

The next two days were honestly a blur.  I was attending a conference about juvenile law and our sessions were one hour long and went from 8 am to 5:30 pm.  I was on information overload. 

I was at the conference with three coworkers, and we did manage to explore downtown Denver both nights and I just loved it.  Here are my main takeaways:

1 – People are SO NICE.  And happy.  They make eye contact and conversation and smile and hold the door and are just so polite and friendly.

2 – I did not see one piece of trash on the street or sidewalk or anywhere other than a trashcan the entire time.  That's not the case in Philly, and Matt said it was because Denver is so much smaller than Philadelphia is, but I think it's because people who live in Denver don't mind walking three feet to put their trash in a trashcan instead of just dropping it wherever they happen to be when they're finished with it or tossing it out their car window.

3 – You can park your car for an entire day in downtown Denver for $8.  EIGHT. DOLLARS.

With this morning came the monumental task of repacking my bag.  I texted this photo to my sister and asked her if she thought it would close.

She said there wasn't a chance, but she underestimated my zipping abilities and willingness to abandon a pair of giant, heavy brown wedges that never fit me right in a Denver hotel room.

(Now that I'm thinking about these photos, it is disgusting that I put that suitcase on the bed.  Gross.)

I'm waiting at the airport now with another colleague who is flying back to Philly.  It’s 4:49 p.m., and we have been here since about lunchtime.  Our flight leaves at 6, and with the time change, arrives in Philly at 11:49 PM, if it doesn’t get delayed.  That's a big IF, because Matt keeps sending me videos of the storms at home.

I just hope we don't lose power when I finally get there.

But just in case we do, maybe I should use this airport time to brush up the status of our stocks and retirement fund.

when it rains, it pours

Well, I know the saying goes "if you don't laugh, you'll cry."

But what happens if you've already laughed, but it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week and the laughing didn't work and so then you cried?  Maybe even more than once?  And also maybe you're spending Friday night holding a bag of frozen broccoli normandy on your face because you officially have the worst luck in all the world and inadvertently slammed your eye into a table?

This week has kicked my butt and while the details of Monday through Wednesday aren't necessary, let me tell you what happened on Thursday.  I had interviews in one office in the morning, and meetings in another office in the afternoon.  I normally pack my lunch, but I decided I'd stop for a special treat and get myself lunch on my way from one office to the next.

I can't explain what came over me and my appetite at lunch time, but I decided to make a little run for the border.  AKA, I wanted Taco Bell.  Here is where it's important to tell you that I have not had Taco Bell in YEARS.  I'm fairly certain the last time I've had it was college, and below is photographic evidence that I enjoyed it on January 28, 2007.

I pulled into the drive through line and could not get over how busy it was! Who knew Taco Bell was so popular with the lunchtime crowd?  It was hot out so I had my AC running full blast and was listening to a podcast.  When I (finally) got to the menu, I studied it carefully and decided on a number 9 (a Crunchwrap Supreme), entree only.  I slowly pulled forward, and forward again, until I finally rounded the corner towards the window.  And as the car in front of me pulled up to the window to pay, it suddenly dawned on me that I HAD NOT ORDERED ANYTHING.

I sat in front of that menu for a good four minutes and studied it like I was cramming for a final back in 2007, but do you know what I did not do? Roll my window down and ACTUALLY PLACE MY ORDER.  Between the AC and my podcast, I couldn't even hear if someone was asking, "May I take your order?!"

I decided I had one of two options.  I could just floor it and speed past the window, but I figured that might look a little shady.  Or, I could tell the lady at the window I didn't place an order. 

I ended up going with option two, and sheepishly informed her that I'd "changed my mind" once I got in line and didn't order anything.

I've officially never felt dumber.

Today wasn't much better, and when I got home I definitely wanted to put my PJs on, and possibly lay on the couch and feel sorry for myself. 

But Matt's brother and his wife bought a house today, so instead we went over there to see it and then Matt's parents took us all out for pizza.  We laughed a lot and when we got home, it hit me that the house was a total mess and I had 87,00 things to do before leaving for Denver early Sunday morning.  But Matt said he was going to make a fire out back, so I ignored the mess, poured a glass of wine, and met him by the fire.

And it was SO relaxing.  I'm no medical professional but I'm pretty sure my blood pressure went down by the second as I sat out there.  I laid in the hammock, we listened to the Phillies game, I read my book, and it was seventy two degrees with a slight breeze, aka perfection.

Until our neighbor and her crew decided to go for a 10:00 swim, complete with flood lights and Broadway show tunes on a loud speaker.  We ended up going inside shortly after the swim team showed up.  Matt went to bed because he and his dad are going on an early morning "recon mission" to find a hunting spot for this fall, so I decided to get a jump start on my Denver packing.  I knew we had a brand new laptop carrying case up in our top bedroom. 

We don't have a light up there but I knew where the box was, so I ran up, bent down to pick it up, and in the process smacked my eye, full force, into the old kitchen table we have stored up there, leaning against the wall above the laptop bag.

I saw stars.

And then, I looked in the mirror and saw blood coming from my eyelid. 

Which is not ideal.

I'm leaving for the fancy conference in Denver on Sunday morning.  Four people from my company are going, and we had a conference call this afternoon about networking expectations.

I'm naturally super awkward in networking situations, and I'm not so sure that a giant black eye is going to work in my favor.

The good news is I've done extensive research on things to do in Denver so I'll plenty of activity options in lieu of networking.

And I can wear sunglasses to all of them.

my life has literally gone to the birds

Well, greetings from the aviary.

Did anyone else ever look around one day and realize you're in charge of five birds? 

No? 

Just me?

My mom is a teacher, and she has two classroom parakeets.  I'm taking care of them this week for her, so the two parakeets plus our three chickens mean there are currently five fowl depending on us.

Which in my opinion, is five too many.  

I had a meeting today at my company's home office, which is 100 miles away.  I arrived at Enterprise promptly at 7:30 to pick up my rental car, and they upgraded me to a brand new Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk.  It was dark gray with black wheels which is my dream car color combo, and the Trailhawk, as the name suggests, is very sporty and rugged.  Which are two qualities I do not personally possess, but enjoy in a vehicle.  

Never know when you might need to ford a creek.

Anyway, I plugged the office address into my GPS.  It normally takes 1 hour and 40 minutes door to door, so imagine my surprise when my GPS said it would take THREE HOURS.  I turned on the traffic report and it turns out there had been an accident on the turnpike in the middle of the night, and the whole highway was closed for miles.

I decided to just get started and see what happened, and things went fine at first.  Eventually I got to the area near the accident and had to exit.  My GPS told me to turn right and follow that road for 5 miles through a little central Pennsylvania town called Plowville.

Even though it was out of my way, it was quite enjoyable to drive down the county road while the world woke up on either side.  It was a tiny little farming town, with beautiful barns and pastures and rolling hills.  There was a little main drag with a busy diner and a church and a market and a post office.  It looked like the setting for a Hallmark movie.

As I was making a mental note to myself to look up houses in this town on Zillow when I got home, it occurred to me that I may have been driving more than five miles.  I have a terrible sense of distance and direction, but sure enough when I glanced at my GPS, all I saw was the swirling circle of uncertainty and the word REROUTING.

Apparently Plowville has a lot of lovely perks, but good cell service is not necessarily one of them.  

I knew that the general direction I needed to head was west, so I fought my natural instinct, which was to turn left (because in my head left = west), and kept driving until I saw a sign that actually said the word WEST.  

Eventually, I made it to the office, by way of Plowville and Blue Ball, Pennsylvania.

Cross that off my bucket list.

My next work trip is coming up and I'm going to DENVER, COLORADO.  The farthest west I have been is Detroit, so this is a big deal.  I asked Matt if he thought I'd be able to see the mountains from Denver.  He said, "Yes, because Denver is IN the mountains.  It is called the Mile High City."

Well. I thought it was called the Mile High City because of their lax marijuana laws.

But I'm also the girl who thinks north is straight ahead and west is to my left, so take my knowledge of geography with a grain of salt.

Matt will be in charge of the parakeets for a few days while I'm gone, which I think will be fine since tonight when we were in the kitchen, I thought I heard the parakeets chirping.  Their birdcage is downstairs, so the chirping sounded way too close.  For a brief second I wondered if they had flown the coop  birdcage, but I quickly realized Matt was in the living room playing clips of birds chirping on Youtube, and imitating them himself.

I'll be in Denver for four days, which is longer than my normal trips, but I won't have to worry about Matt being lonely.

He will be able to communicate with the parakeets.

*Linking up with Cup of Tea for High Five for Friday.*

if there's an opening at the nail polish factory, count me in for the job

Whenever I have a bad day at work, I think about what job sounds amazing to me that day that isn't the one I have.  One of those jobs is to be the person who names nail polish.  Nail polish always has the most ridiculously awesome names, and I think it would be so fun to be the one to come up with those crazy titles.

I've also considered greeting card writer, librarian, and for a while I was on a florist kick.  How could you ever have a bad day as a florist?  

But recently, I've been thinking that my ideal job might be working at Fresh Market.  This summer I've been going there once a week to get the Little Big Meal, which is when they sell all of the components for a meal for just $20.  It's usually enough to feed us for two nights, which in my opinion, is a deal.

Here was our meal this week.  

Not only is the food delicious, but the store is beautiful.  The produce is brighter and the flowers smell better, the music is lovely, and the employees are so polite.  It's like a spa.  

Last week I got a few bottles of iced tea while I was there.  The flavors sounded delicious but it wasn't until I got home that I noticed the descriptions.

I mean, I am a human being and I have never frolicked through a field and then cannon balled into a secret swimming hole.

I feel like we may be giving a little too much credit to cranberries.

However, I did agree with the description of a peach as a happy go lucky fruit.  I feel like that personality fits a peach.  And then I started thinking about what the other fruits would be.  Bananas would be cheap and boring, but dependable.  Much like myself.

Cherries would be high maintenance.  Strawberries would be a little unpredictable, and blueberries would be sweet and unassuming.  

Wait until next week when the personality of VEGETABLES will be coming to a blog near you!

Anyway, that night I decided to paint my nails, and I chose a very pale blue, because it felt summery yet understated.  It was the Sally Hansen kind that you can get at Walmart for $1.97.  I know what you're thinking.  TYPICAL BANANA.

As I got the polish out I made it a point to look at what the color was called, and imagine my disappointment when I saw the name.

Breezy Blue.

BREEZY BLUE?

That's the best Sally Hansen could come up with?

I think the nail polish namers have jumped ship and are now working over at Tazo Iced Tea writing flavor descriptions.

what i've been reading: summer edition

It's book post time again with Steph and Jana!  I didn't share last month, so I have double the books to share today.  

First up was Natural Disaster by Ginger Zee.

ABC News chief meteorologist Ginger Zee pulls back the curtain on her life in Natural Disaster. Ginger grew up in small-town Michigan where she developed an obsession with weather as a young girl. Ginger opens up about her lifelong battle with crippling depression, her romances that range from misguided to dangerous, and her tumultuous professional path. This cyclone of stories may sound familiar to some-it's just that Ginger's personal tempests happened while she was covering some of the most devastating storms in recent history, including a ferocious tornado that killed a legend in the meteorology field.

I didn't know much about Ginger Zee before I read this, but Michelle recommended it and I really enjoyed it!  She was very honest about struggles and challenges in her life.  My favorite part was the behind the scenes info she shared about everything from her time at local news all the way up to GMA.

Happily Ali After Ali Wentworth

Moved by a particularly inspirational tweet one day, Ali Wentworth resolves to live by the pithy maxims she discovers in her feeds. What begins as a sort of self-help project quickly turns into something far grander—and increasingly funnier—as the tweets she once viewed with irony become filled with increasing metaphysical importance. And thus begins her “Unhappiness Project.”  It’s not long before Ali expands her self-improvement quest to include parenting, relationship, fitness (or lack thereof), and dieting advice. The results are painfully (at times literally) clear: when it comes to self-help, sometimes you should leave it to the professionals.

This was hysterical.  Parts of it are a little raunchy, but the premise is very clever and I found myself laughing out loud in nearly every single chapter.  I absolutely loved her humor and writing style and wanted to read all of her other books after this one.

The Marriage Pact by M. J. Mullen

Marci Thompson always knew what life would be like by her 30th birthday. A large but cozy suburban home shared with a charming husband and two brilliant children. A celebrated career as a writer, complete with mahogany shelves and a summer book tour. A life full of adventure with her friends and family by her side. Instead, Marci lives alone in 480 square feet of converted motel space next to a punk rock band, hundreds of miles from her friends and family. She works in a temporary accounting assignment that has somehow stretched from two weeks into nine months. And the only bright spot in her life, not to mention the only sex she's had in two years, is an illicit affair with her married boss, Doug.

Thirty is not at all what it is cracked up to be. Then the reappearance of an old friend with whom she had made a drunken marriage pact 10 years earlier opens a long-forgotten door, and the lines between right and wrong, heartache and happiness are all about to get very blurry, as Marci faces the most difficult choices of her life.

I got this book from the library because I had heard The Marriage Pact was quite the suspenseful page turner.  I got about 100 pages into this and thought, geez, the author sure does take a long time to introduce the suspense.  And that's when I googled and found out there are actually two books titled The Marriage Pact.  I finished this since I'd already spent a lot of time on it, but one of the main love stories centers around an affair which I didn't really love.  It passed the time, but don't run out and get it.

Take two, The Marriage Pact by Michelle Richmond

Newlyweds Alice and Jake are a picture-perfect couple. Alice, once a singer in a well-known rock band, is now a successful lawyer. Jake is a partner in an up-and-coming psychology practice. Their life together holds endless possibilities. After receiving an enticing wedding gift from one of Alice’s prominent clients, they decide to join an exclusive and mysterious group known only as The Pact.

The goal of The Pact seems simple: to keep marriages happy and intact. And most of its rules make sense. Always answer the phone when your spouse calls. Exchange thoughtful gifts monthly. Plan a trip together once per quarter. . . . Never mention The Pact to anyone.  Alice and Jake are initially seduced by the glamorous parties, the sense of community, their widening social circle of like-minded couples.  And then one of them breaks the rules.  The young lovers are about to discover that for adherents to The Pact, membership, like marriage, is for life. And The Pact will go to any lengths to enforce that rule.

For Jake and Alice, the marriage of their dreams is about to become their worst nightmare.

I'm still not sure how I felt about this!  On one hand, I couldn't put it down.  On the other, it was twisted and disturbing and weird. 

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han



Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer -- they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one wonderful and terrible summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.

This was a quick, easy summer read.  It wasn't deep or thought provoking, but perfect for summer.

Ali in Wonderland by Ali Wentworth



Mix 1 oz. Chelsea Handler, 1.5 oz. Nora Ephron, finish with a twist of Tina Fey, and you get Ali in Wonderland, the uproarious, revealing, and heartfelt memoir from acclaimed actress and comedian Ali Wentworth. Whether spilling secrets about her quintessentially WASPy upbringing (and her delicious rebellion against it), reminiscing about her Seinfeld “Schmoopie” days and her appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The View, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, or baring the details of starting a family alongside husband George Stephanopoulos, one thing is for sure—Ali has the unsurpassable humor and warmth of a born storyteller with a story to tell: the quirky, flavorful, surprising, and sometimes scandalous Ali in Wonderland.

I didn't think that this was as funny as the other one I read, but still enjoyable.  I'd love to go to happy hour with Ali.  I bet she's a good time.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman



Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. 

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

I think I am the last person on Earth to read this, but I hope there's still room left on the bandwagon.  I loved it.  The characters were so quirky, the plot was entertaining, the writing made me laugh out loud and tear up, and the end surprised me.  This is one that I think I would read over again!


Right now I'm in the middle of The Wife Between Us!  Did you read anything good this month?

the good stuff

Sometimes I have lots of ideas about clever ways to tell a story.

And other times I have a lousy week at work and spend the weekend not using any brain power and just being thankful for the good stuff.  That was this weekend.  To start, the weather was absolutely amazing.  I was pretty much inside only to sleep.

Other good stuff from the weekend:

I got home on Friday after work and was in my pajamas before 5.  Matt came home from work and took both front wheels off of his truck, replaced the shocks and struts, and grilled dinner.  

I painted my nails and read half a new book.

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Annie's birthday party was on Saturday. It seems like just yesterday she was a teeny tiny little peanut fresh from the NICU.

And now she's three!

I was re-reading the blog post I wrote about when she was born, and it's so funny to me how excited I was, and we didn't even know who she was or who she would be  And now she's this little person who has thoughts and opinions and says funny things.

We got her a bathrobe and Lincoln Logs for her birthday.  My sister-in-law told me that she needed a new robe, but I didn't expect her to love it like she did.  It's pink zebra, and as someone who wanted to wear leopard print shoes to her wedding, I guess loving an animal print is in her genes.

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When Matt and I got home from the party, we decided to buy a fire pit.  We had a chiminea our first summer in this house, but it cracked and we had to get rid of it.  Last year we really missed sitting out by the fire, so we got a new one and literally fired it up Saturday night.  It was cool enough to wear a sweatshirt and we sat out there for a few hours, just relaxing and listening to music.

Just kidding, we listened to the local police scanner.  At one point we actually HEARD A CAR ACCIDENT in the distance and then listened along to all of the first responders on the scanner.  It was fascinating.

Note the sleeve of Ritz crackers on the grass that we brought out with us in case we needed a snack.

I'm not even going to talk about the part where a skunk walked by.

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This afternoon I went for a hike.  I felt more relaxed with every step. 

 I would have stayed there forever, but I knew I had to come home and finish laundry and make dinner.  And when I walked in the door, Matt was in the kitchen cooking away.

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Also, my mother-in-law was getting rid of this crate with old milk bottles and she asked if I wanted it before she threw it out.  OF COURSE I DID!  I'm not sure where I'm going to put it yet, but I think it's so cool, especially because four of the six bottles are from Pennsylvania.  One is even from the town where Matt went to college!

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And now it's Sunday night, and we just decided to book a three day camping trip in September, but I am going to take the entire week off work.  I love having something to look forward to!

take your wife to work day, part 2

Well, I'm back with part two of Take Your Wife to Work Day.  Apparently when I ended part one, I felt that I had LOTS more to say, and now six days later, I can remember exactly none of it.  But I'm not one to shy away from a self-imposed challenge to make the mundane somewhat entertaining, so here goes. 

After Matt finished up his work, we headed to the elevator to ride downstairs.  The elevator doors were all mirrors, AKA my very favorite surface.  By comparison, here is what the elevator at my office looks like.

Basically exactly the same.

Here we are, ending the day.  My aunt saw this picture and said we should blow it up and hang it above our bed, because it pretty much showcases our personalities perfectly.  There I am, smiling and staring at myself and probably mid-sentence, and there's Matt, listening to every word but trying his darnedest not to smile because MUST KEEP A STOIC APPEARANCE AT ALL TIMES.

It kind of reminds me of the opposite of these photos that I came across this week. Matt and I went to the same elementary school, but didn't become friends until we worked together in high school, which was 15 years ago which is HALF OF MY LIFE.  These photos are from a few years later, but they're the first I could find of us together. 

Prepare yourself. 

I mean, could I look any less impressed?

I bet no one at that table INCLUDING YOURS TRULY saw marriage in our future, but life is funny.  

Anyway, we took the train home after work and I spent the whole time feeling grateful that I get to commute in my own car, controlling my own music, temperature, air flow, and route.  And most importantly, I get to be ALL ALONE.  Matt loves commuting on the train, but I don't think it's for me.

On Monday it was back to the palace for Matt and back to the salt mines for me.  And by salt mines, I mean the old hospital turned office building that's my home for 40 hours a week.  Let's just say it's seen better decades centuries.  To rub salt in the wound, the landlord sent out an email that morning warning us of some goings on later in the week.

Even with my limited, or to be more honest nonexistent, knowledge about plumbing, I think preventing back flow is a good thing.  Unfortunately the testing to do so would be accompanied by murky water.

Sure enough, the murky water showed up on Wednesday afternoon.  And shortly after, the power went out for a few minutes.  I shared that news with my mom and sister.  My mom is a teacher so she's home for the summer, but my sister is working with Americorps on a Native American reservation in Minnesota in her very own office that has seen better decades centuries, and was having it's own share of toilet troubles.

There's a phrase I never thought I'd write about.

Fortunately the issues in my office cleared up in a day or two.  Unfortunately for Emily, she ran into a problem of a different sort the next morning when she went into the office basement for native style embroidery training.

 

Also, Emily is eight weeks out of college and already has an "exterminator buddy" at her job.

I walked out of the office at the end of the day and took the elevator up to the third, aka top floor of the parking garage.  I park up there because our parking garage is crumbling bit by bit, and it's not uncommon for pieces of concrete to fall onto people's cars from the ceiling above.  My thinking is that if I park on the top level with nothing above me, then concrete can't fall on my car.  Also, if the whole thing collapses, I'd rather my car be on the top than in the middle.

ANYWAY I got all the way up to the top, only to realize that I'd made an exception to my personal parking policy that day and parked on level 2 because it had been raining when I arrived that morning.  While I waited for the elevator to ride back down, I stood in the vestibule and looked around. 

 The vestibule has a little bit of a greenhouse effect going on, and is always a thousand degrees and feels like mid-August, no matter what the actual date on the calendar.  I also noticed there were leaves on the ground from the fall, and the door was propped open with a bag of rock salt leftover from this winter.

So, I decided to use that to re-frame my thinking about my office.  

I mean, it's pretty much the Four Seasons.

the road to penn state was apparently paved with nails

Emily moved right from Penn State to northern Minnesota to work with Americorps the day after her graduation from Penn State in May.  She didn't know where she would be living, so she could only take what fit in the back of her tiny SUV.  There were still some things in her apartment, so I offered to take a vacation day and go back with my mom to bring home the rest of her things.  Today was that day. 

PSU is about a three and a half hour drive away, so my mom picked me (and Flat Emily) up around 8:00, and by 8:07 I was ranking my favorite over the counter pain relievers.  With a kickoff conversation like that, it's a wonder she didn't turn back around and drop me off. 

(In case you're curious and WHY WOULDN'T YOU BE, Aleve is my favorite.)

(FollowedbyMotrinTylenolAdvil I'm sorry I had to share.)

Anyway, the drive to Penn State was pretty smooth.  We covered all of the usual conversation ground - national news, local news, work, family, beauty products, dinner ideas, Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton's wardrobes, and celebrities that are bugging us right now. 

We got to Em's apartment, carried the boxes downstairs, loaded up the car, and gave her room and bathroom one final cleaning all in about an hour and a half.

Once we finished carrying all the boxes down we took a little break and mom said, "It's really not as much stuff as I expected.  This isn't bad at all.  It's a good thing Dad didn't take a day off for this."

As a person who DID take a day off for this, I was highly offended.

Just kidding I thought it was hilarious.

We loaded the car, returned her keys to the rental office, and headed onto campus to get a well-deserved lunch at the famous creamery.  We had to go around the block twice to find the entrance to the parking garage and then tried to go in the wrong door to the creamery building, but we told ourselves that Penn State gave us both college degrees so we should be able to figure out how to get an ice cream cone. 

We got inside, ate absolutely delicious sandwiches outside under shady trees and I could have stayed there all day.  But the road was calling, so we got three half-gallons of ice cream and a summer sausage in a bag with dry ice for home, two vanilla milkshakes for the road, and set off.

Mom drove up in the morning, so I was driving home.  My phone was almost dead so my mom offered to get my charger out of my purse.  She was finally able to unearth it from beneath the lip gloss collection that I carry around with me.

She counted ten glosses. 

I know ten is a lot, but it's not like lip gloss is an outlandish item to have in a purse.  My mom decided to count how many glosses she had in her's, and she had a perfectly reasonable one.

But do you know what else she had? TWO SETS OF CHOPSTICKS.

I joked that between my lip gloss and her chopsticks, we were basically ready for anything.

And then the low tire pressure light went on.

"Uh-oh, the tire pressure light is on.  Do you think I should pull over?" I said.

"No, I don't think so," Mom said.  "I think you're fine to just keep going."

Because I wasn't quite so sure about that, I decided to pull into the right lane while mom called dad.  He didn't answer (forgot he was getting his hair cut), so she called my brother.  She gave him the five second run down and he said, "Are you close to an exit?" 

"Yes," she said.

"Okay.  Get off at the exit. Drive carefully and slowly to the nearest gas station."

I don't know that I've ever heard my brother use a more serious voice.  I half-expected him to say PLEASE REMAIN CALM. EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY.

But he didn't.  He calmly advised us to check for a nail and wouldn't you know, there was a nail.  He asked if we could put the spare donut on and after we stopped laughing we told him no, and even if we did, it was buried under all of Emily's earthly possessions in the back.  Mom said she'd sell the car and buy a new one to drive home before she'd unpack the trunk and change a tire.

I am my mother's daughter.

Luckily, there was an auto shop half a mile away, so I SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY drove down the road and my mom went into the office hoping for pity and kindness and a mechanic willing to fix a tire exactly 26 minutes before closing time on the Friday of a holiday weekend.

Luckily they could change the tire and we went into the waiting room to sit while they worked on it.  About the time we sat down, a very sweaty mechanic came in from the garage, walked right up to the small fan on the shelf behind the counter, lifted his whole shirt right up, and just stood there with the fan blowing on his stomach.

"Ya hot, Steve?" his coworker asked.

"Yeah man, I'm overheating," he said.

As Steve was cooling down, the manager, John, picked up the phone, and, I kid you not, told the person on the other end, "Ohhhh boy.  Oh yeah, you're going to need to eat lots and lots of fiber.  That'll really loosen things up and get 'em going."

He changes tires and gives medical advice of the gastrointestinal variety.  A regular renaissance man.

After his phone call he struck up a conversation with us, which quickly went from the obvious flat tires to him quizzing us on the lyrics of "The Wheels on the Bus.

I will tell you right now, if you had asked me this morning the craziest thing I could imagine happening today, in no universe would I have said sitting in an auto shop waiting room in central Pennsylvania being quizzed on the lyrics of The Wheels on the Bus by the head mechanic.

But John had the song lyrics printed out, because he only knows two verses and wants to learn more, so he quizzed us what sounds each thing made.

The doors? Open and shut.

The wipers? Swish, swish, swish.

The babies? Wah wah wah.

The horn?  Beep beep beep.

The money? Clink clink clink.

The mother and daughter waiting in the auto shop waiting room?  GET US HOME.

All joking aside he was a very nice man and his shop sure did save the day.  We promised John we would learn how to change a tire, got back on the road, stopped for coffee and gas, got BACK on the road and made it home almost 12 hours after we'd left. 

We could have been halfway to Minnesota.

I had a little headache by the time we pulled into my driveway.  Pajamas, some grilled chicken, and a bowl of Penn State ice cream for dessert was just what the doctor ordered.

And maybe an Aleve.