Tag: meisaj

Its about me.

20%

meisajDaily Life

Saturday was that strange occurrence in nature where 20% chance of rain is actually 100% chance of rain at multiple times throughout the night.

These rare mathematical curiosities occur seemingly only on nights I go camping. The last time this happened was back in 2001 when I was camping at Mammoth Caves. 20% chance of rain the forecast had said. The ranger even said that. I only assume when rangers say something that makes it a Fact. However throughout the night three or four separate thunderstorm systems rolled through the area and just flooded out tent. We basically slept in a stream. When we awake everyone else had abandoned their camp sites in the middle of the night to drive to a hotel.

But that was 2001, and had been regulated to a humorous story (one of many to come from driving cross country). Something that happened then, and couldn’t ever possible happen again.

And then there was Saturday.

Saturday Sam and I hosted her parents, brother, grandmother, nephew, aunt and aunt’s boyfriend at our apartment for breakfast. I made French Toast using two day old Italian Bread. We cleaned the hell out of our apartment and it was pretty awesome. Except for the aunt’s boyfriend. He’s never allowed in our apartment again. He’s just an ass. But that’s not the story.

After they left Sam and I made some Cold Veggie Pizza, relaxed for an hour or two and then heading to Brooke’s wedding. It was a great outdoor reception (we didn’t make the wedding itself). Huge backyard, barns, a little stream, an large wooded area to set up tents. Yeah… that’s right, it was a camping wedding. Kick Ass. And right before we left we checked the weather. 20% chance of rain and temperatures in the mid to high 50’s all night long. Perfect camping weather, especially for October.

We set our camp up in a little nook and took to the pot-luck dinner and deserts. It was fantastic. The tables were covered with butcher paper and sharpies were left out for people to draw all over them. Again, simple but awesome. White Christmas tree lights lined the tarps and paper lanterns hung from trees.

And still the weather forecast said 20% chance of rain. But by 7 the wind was picking up pretty good. And by 8, when the band was supposed to start, the rain had landed. They started the bonfires regardless, but most people huddled under the tents. It turned from light rain to downpour pretty fast, and lasted for almost an hour. I went to check on the tent around 9 and noticed water in the tent bottom, specifically by the door. Now this tent was old. We borrowed it from Sam’s parents, so some water inside wasn’t a complete shock.

We checked it out, adjusted the tarp on top, changed it position on the ground a little and went back to the party none-to-concerned. After all the rain had stopped. We sat by the bonfire, drank some beer and ate some cookies. Life was good.

Until the rain started again at 10:30. More downpour. I checked on the tent again. More water. This time we noticed a hole in the bottom near the door. With a little borrowed duct tape and a plastic bag we patched the hole, even as other holes appeared in other spots. Luckily the water was staying near the door, and all our stuff was near the opposite end of the tent. Again we did a little clean up inside, thought we had and went back to the party.

Another hour or so of enjoying everything and we decided it was time to knock off and sleep some. We were up early (especially for a Saturday) and it was midnight. The rain had tapered to just a mist and although it was still wet, it wasn’t much worse than before. We threw the sleeping bags down (one on the ground, one as a blanket) and passed out.

I woke up at 2 a.m. to more tumultuous downpour and drips landing on my feet. There were now pools of water right next to me, just off to the side of the sleeping bag. I could feel the water seeping underneath me but decided to just roll over and go back to sleep. Hope for the best.

At 6 a.m. I woke up and headed to the bathroom. The near door tent area was soaked. When I got back to the tent I laid back down, only to discover after I got up the water completely soaked the sleeping bag. I tried sleeping on my side to limit the amount of wetness that would occur, but it didn’t help. After about 30 minutes of this I decided to just give up and stay up. How Sam slept through it I don’t know.

So there it is. 20% is a guarantee, not a maybe for rain when I camp.

I think I need to plan my next camping trip in the desert.

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It Happened…

meisajDaily Life

So I did pretty well on my summer goals. Just in case you were curious.

I’ve lost 30 pounds since January. Was pretty steady about losing weight all summer. And work started, which means I can’t exercise as much, but have leveled out at 170 pounds. And look pretty good I think. I’ve been doing push ups and sit ups every morning (m – f) and that feels good too.

So I’m dong something right there. I’m also catching up (slowly) in my sketches, but much more regular than I used to. And I’m pretty good at work this year too. It’s busy and stressful and seems like more on my plate than last year…. but I’m good at it. And having that recognized feels great.

So where’s the tragedy. The tragedy is that they finally realized that Admin are supposed to wear ties on a daily basis. I hate ties. I do. I had the disconnect between male professional dress codes and female professional dress code. When leggings and a long button shirt are somehow acceptable work place dress and I have to wear a button down shirt and tie every day there is some sort of discrepancy. But whatever. I look decent in ties (I think) but that doesn’t change my wish to not wear them. Not to mention I don’t know how to match ties to t-shirts.

I’m going to work on keeping this up to date. I’m going to try. So a random first post updating crap is fine. Who knows, maybe I’ll start scanning my drawing back into here. Get that going again perhaps.

Summer of Self?

meisajDaily Life

So this is the Summer of Self? Or maybe Summer of Shape? I haven’t decided what sounds less catchy.

Basically I’m using buying a new car as impetus for making steps to better myself. Both shape-wise, monetary-wise, and generally. New car means new monthly payments (hate monthly payments) and higher car insurance (yay!) but its all within my budget, as long as I don’t go crazy. In the last year all the times I was close to broke was because I just dumped a huge chunk of change on my car getting it road worthy. That’s no longer an issue, but I’ll still be pouring money into it over time now as opposed to giant lump sums.

And I’m back on my “I need to get in better shape” kick. I had told Yousey on my fateful Hawaii trip that I was glad I was in the shape where I can up and run five miles at a decent pace without having ran in the past year or so. I mean that’s pretty good. I don’t care about being ‘cut’ or hugely muscular, that’s just ridiculous, but I would like to be in slightly better shape. So I’m going to exercise everyday, and do push ups and sit ups every morning. Not a lot, not crazy many, but exercise.

I’m also going to try and draw every day to catch up in my Daily Drawings (still behind by a little), and write one blog post every day. Just for the hell of it. And read three books in July. Two of my choosing and one professional book related to the education field.

Suck it Life. I’m mastering you.

Random Life Story #2 or Happy Mother’s Day

meisajDaily Life

My friends joke that my mom doesn’t care about me. Its not that she doesn’t care, its that she has this faith that everything will be fine, or at least that I’ll be fine. That’s what she tells me at least. That and that it will make a good story.

There are many stories that reinforce this, but none so much as the time my friends and I went to see a late night movie in high school.

I’m not sure what movie it was. It may have been The Crow 2, or Mortal Kombat or some cheesy thing like that. Something that was surely marketed to high school boys. Regardless of the movie, Reggie, Keith and I were the only ones in the theater. It started at 11, or 10:40 or something similar to that. Last movie starting in the theater, and in my recollected memories I pictures the workers being annoyed that we actually showed up. It was in July or August, definitely summer, and we had nothing else to do. So we went to a late night movie, got some popcorn and soda, and settled in.

Keith had driven us. He was legal to drive, but was under 18 so he wasn’t allowed to drive after 10 o’clock (maybe it was 9, I don’t recall… all I know is that there was a drive curfew for kids under 18). We readily ignored those hours when we hung out, Keith drove us all over the place.

The movie was about two hours long and when we exited I don’t think they even tried to clean up the theater after us. They locked the doors, and while we were talking about the “awesomeness” of the movie outside Keith’s car and we watched them all drive off. When we finally got into Keith’s car to leave it wouldn’t start. We sat around a bit, tried starting it again and again it wouldn’t start.

Being the high school kids we were we carried no cash on us. Or at least had no coins. We came up with one quarter between the three of us. This was 1996 or 1995 and cell phones were non-existent. We thought about it a while and called my house. In the discussion of who’s house to call, we decided there was always someone up at my house because it was the busiest.

Sadly no one answered. I left a long extended call that went something like this:

“Hi. This is AJ. I’m with Keith and Reggie and Keith’s car won’t start. We at the theater on Route 9 and are going to start walking home. If you get this please come get us. We’re going to walk on Route 9 until we can cut through a neighborhood to Aviation Road, then Potter and down West Mountain. It looks like its going to rain. Thanks.”

After that we started walking. Although I always exaggerate the distance, it couldn’t have been more than 6 miles. It started raining almost immediately. We walked down the middle of roads hoping someone would tke pity on us and pick us up. We even kicked over construction barrels, but the police (who did drive by) didn’t think we were “hooligan-ish enough” to stop and talk to.

On Potter road we actually ran into some people I ran with on the Cross-Country team. However they were extremely drunk and stumbling down the road. Nice enough though. They even offered to drive us home but we smartly declined.

About a mile from my parents, soaked, and having walked for what seemed like forever we came to Reggie’s house. Both Keith and Reggie decided to crash there, but I was annoyed, tired and wet enough to want to head back home. So I said goodbye and walked the last mile home.

When I finally stumbled in the door I found my mother sitting at the island in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading. I was shocked, astounded really. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. I had to ask, so I did.

“Did you hear the message I left on the answering machine?”

“Yes. Actually it woke me up,” she replied.

“And you listened to the message?”

“Yep. I figured you’d be ok. I couldn’t get back to sleep.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just shuffled by her and started down the stairs. Before I reached the first step my mom added one last thing, the one thing that made this story all the more fantastical.

“You know… if it were any of my other children I would have left right away to go get them.”

Yeah. My mom, she told me that. I didn’t even turn around. I just headed downstairs to my room and passed out.

To this day I swear that’s the story I’ll tell of my mom at her wake. Those are the words my mom told me. My brother, any of my three sisters; if any of them had been in that situation she would have gone to get them right away, but not me.

Of course it can be taken many different ways. At the basest it sounds like a statement that my brothers and sisters are more important than me. But that’s not how I take, nor how I ever took. I actually took it as a joke at first. My mom can make funny little quips like that.

But, and she insists this how she meant it, she meant it that I would be fine no matter what’s going on around me. That I can get through whatever is happening.

Its a nice admission, of strength, of support, of belief in who I am. That I’ve made good choices, that I’m the kind of person she can be proud of.

And of course…

It makes a nice story.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom. Love You.

Marraige: Same Sex or Otherwise

meisajDaily Life

Sooo disappointed in North Carolina right now. How do people defend that vote as anything other than discrimination. It really is disappointing.

In my logical head I see this as a non-issue, only a non-issue in the sense that ten years down the line I don’t think it will be an issue. It will be a norm accepted everywhere. But right I just feel sad and disappointed.

Sam and I were talking about it and I think that marriage should be stuck from legal speak everywhere. If the defenders are saying marriage is a sacred institution that God (with a capital G) needs defended and defined as between a Man and Woman, then it shouldn’t be a term the government uses.

Let every couple be defined as a civil union. Instead of letting both Man and Woman and Same Sex couples be defined as civil unions, not marriages in the governments eyes and terminology. Let bigots and honest god fearing religious conservatives that want to keep the rights they enjoy from other people different from them (a very religiously and Jesus like thing to do I sure) be brought down to the civil union status. They can keep marriage as a non-legal word that carries no weight in court, with regard to benefits, and in the eyes of any elected or governmental person or institution. It’s theirs, but has no legal weight at all.

There you go. No more conflict. Go to your priest, pastor, cleric, imam, prophet, or whatever religious leader you want declare you married, and then go down to city hall or whatever governmental institution and get your Civil Union license. Bam.

On your taxes it says Civil Union, not married. During the census, Civil Union. For everyone.

How great would that be? All those couples that voted against Same Sex Marriage, no problem, the government does’t recognize your marriage either, but your civil union, you got it. No more bitching. Not taking away any rights, just changing terminology. They do it with taxes all the time.

Just my two cents.

Story-Time

meisajDaily Life

After going to see William Shatner with Sam on Saturday, and loving it, I decided to start writing some blog posts just based off of old stories. All Shatner did was great, funny, meaningful (to him) stories from his life. And I thought, “I do that all the time.” So why not write some down. I’ve often found when comparing memories and stories with friends that I seem to remember more than they do.

Sooooo, lets start with a short tale. More of a facet of a day. Random happening.

I helped my friends Jason and Danei (and baby Harvey) move this weekend. While helping them move I was also texting Pat about completely different things.

But the fact that both moving and Pat were on my mind brought back a story from sophomore year of college. I had shown up at college a week early for cross-country and freshman orientation (I was helping out with it, along with our friend Matt). I had my room all set up and moved in. I spent a majority of the time not at practice hanging out in Matt’s dorm room, what we would affectionately call “The Quad” because it was one of the few four person dorm rooms on campus (if not the only one at that time). Matt also was the friend with the dominate video game system of the time…. the original Playstation.

Matt also had a small water warmer that made cooking up Ramen extremely easy. So one afternoon, despite Matt not being there I still was in the dorm room playing Playstation and eating some ramen. Pat shows up with his father to move all his crap in, he’s one of the roommates in the Quad. Now at the time Pat and I were friends, but not the great friends we are now. That’s another story, and involves fighting. No, at this point we were just ok friends.

So Pat comes in and sets his bag down. We say our hi’s but I don’t remotely move off the couch. In fact the whole time Pat is moving his crap into the dorm, which is on the fourth floor, and there isn’t an elevator, I stay seated on the couch playing video games and eating my Ramen. He doesn’t say anything to me during the move (or if he does I’m not paying attention).

No, the only words I hear out of Pat’s mouth after he’s moved all his stuff in is “I will never, ever help you move.” I do believe there were some swear words, probably just calling me an ass. Pat is fond of calling me an ass, so yeah, that was probably part of it. I don’t know if he was pissed, or just upon reflecting that I didn’t move to help him he was annoyed. But whatever.

To this day Pat hasn’t ever helped me move. But that’s fine too, I don’t think he was around for anytime I had to move.

Its nice to know he’s still sticking to his word.