Catching up!

June 20th - After getting back to Y-town, I ended up sleeping most of the rest of the day because A) I was tired and B) I was depressed that I had to leave my friends and family again. I went to jiu-jitsu and somehow made a guy bleed from his mouth. I mad mentioned home with such longing that one of the dojo boys, Soco, gave me a hug and his phone number. He has turned out to be a really cool friend. I’m starting to collect friends in Nevada! It might someday be home, right?

June 21st - Maybe because I had such a slow Monday, but Tuesday was absolutely crazy. It was nonstop busy from when we opened to when he shoved people out.

June 22nd - Today was a fairly relaxed day. Got up early, went to the gym (ugh... getting sooo flabby!) then went to work. We were busy first thing in the morning, but then it pretty much died. It stayed slow so I was able to keep everything shelved and work on special projects. It was hot and beautiful outside when I ate my lunch. JPO said hi as he was walking in. Apparently he plays guitar; he said he was going to play a song every time he finished a court report. I wish I could take music breaks at work! The drive home was uneventful except the over abundance of cops prowling the roads. I seriously think it was some sort of strange Nevada holiday today that I wasn't told about...

June 23rd - Rather uneventful day except that I baked mini-cheesecakes. I hope they are as awesome tasting as they look!

June 24th - Work was rather eventful. I had a woman kiss me for helping her send email and we had the fire engines, police and EMT all show up. I also started to get sick which sucked.

June 25th - I ended up working alone worked alone and I was not feeling so well. I hope I didn’t infect all the books as they went out... The upside of the day was that Grandma and Grandpa showed up! :-) We drove back to Y-town with Grandma in my car. She freaked out when she saw the crack in my windshield and demanded to call my insurance right away. We finally had dinner at Dinis (buffet) and spent a relaxing night watching tv and chatting.

June 26th - I spent a fantastically lazy day with my grandparents. I hope they didn’t find it boring but it was really nice to just relax all day long! And hang out with family! Bad side was that I still had a nasty cold. My throat was pretty sore and it hurt to swollow and I had the electric yellow snot. Not pretty.

June 27th – I woke up early to see my grandparents off. I made breakfast and then they packed up and left. I was feeling like I could breathe a bit better so I decided to go for an easy jog. I jogged for about 45 minutes without any issues so I figured it was a good day! I was fairly lazy for the rest of the day until I went to jiujitsu. Then I broke a Navy guy’s nose. It was an accident, I swear! I fully contest that he used me to break his own nose...

June 28th – Tuesday was one of the busiest days I have had at the library in a while. It was fairly non-stop all day long. One of the interesting points of the day was a woman came in wearing a ratty sundress. With a bright, florescent thong that showed straight through. It was like a tropical paradise down there.

June 29th - today, I was at the gym on the treadmill. I was just starting to stride out when this guy came up behind me and scared the shit out of me! I nearly fell off the treadmill… I think he was trying to give me his phone number but got scared after I nearly went flying…

July 1st – Friday was a strange day. It was steady in the morning at work but then it basically died. The last 45 minutes, Quinn and I were able to get a lot of straightening done because there was nobody there! Unfortunately not being busy made me kinda tired which wasn’t fun before a long drive to California. On the drive I got a last minute email from the 1SG telling us to bring our hydration packs for the parade. I had two issues with this: 1) Don’t tell me to bring things after I have already left... pre-plan this shit or it won’t happen! and 2) how weak are the Californians that they need hydration packs for a mile long parade? Sad... I made it to Camp Parks a little after 10. My roommate was Spears (with Angel as an add in) I pretty much passed out when I got there though.

July 2nd – Woke up early to proctor the APFT with Garrido and Magee. I was impressed with the few people who passed and disappointed in the many who didn’t even look like they tried. After the APFT was a bit of waiting until the rest of the unit showed up and then we had Blues inspection. I had turned in all my blues for adjustments so I was hoping they had made it back! I told Garrido that if they didn’t I was going to have to show up to formation with just my necktab, panty hose and shoes. And a smile! The blues inspection was outside which was silly since all our nice fresh uniforms got all sweaty. My MPT totally would have won the inspection if anyone was grading ;-) My MPT had a quick run through rehearsal before we headed to lunch. I ate at the DFAC with everyone since everyone was feeling poor. It wasn’t as bad as DFAC could have been. After lunch was a long... very long... concert band rehearsal. It didn’t last all night which was good, but it wasn’t pretty. After concert band, I went to the staff meeting since it was Macy’s birthday and Garrido had to study. Damn responsibilities! After way too long, I was let go. I grabbed some Chipotle for dinner (though I only ate about a quarter of it.) After digesting I went for a 4-5 mile run/jog. It was good to get out and stretch my legs.

July 3rd – I woke up early and did a couple wind-sprints to wake up. Then I showered and got myself over to the band hall. Boland forgot his instrument and uniform so I picked it up for him. We finally got everyone wrangled together and on the bus. I took a nap on the way to Vacaville. We had a sound check/ rehearsal. Then lunch. Then CONCERT! I think the concert went really well! My MPT also played during the intermission so I didn’t get a break... I am glad my chops didn’t give out! I’m pretty happy things went well. After we threw everything out of the building, we packed up and moved out. 1 hour later we unloaded on the Camp Parks side. A group of us went to Chevys for the cheap food and semi-cheap drink. Then we went back to our hotel for swimming! I had way too much fun swimming... obviously need to swim more often!

July 4th – HAPPY 4TH OF JULY! Woke up early yet again. I was a bit worried about having all my t-sax music memorized but when I showed up in the morning, our bass drum player decided not to show up. So, I got tasked with playing bass drum. Woah.... We showed up, marched the parade and got out of there. There were a few issues with the parade, but overall people really liked us! Afterwards I started driving back to Nevada. I had just made it over the mountains when boom... flat tire :-( I pulled over and started to try and change my flat. I tried calling a friend to help, but he couldn’t come. I hate having the feeling of being stuck in the middle of nowhere with no one to help me. Depressing. I also hate the fact that I always seem to get flat tires when I am in uniform! I mostly had my flat changed when a couple stopped to make sure I was ok. The guy was a bit worried that I had the owners manual out. They helped and supervised and made sure I got back on the road ok. I decided to skip the fireworks in F-town and just limped back to Y-town. I watched the fireworks from my front porch and then zonked out.

July 5th – I woke up early so I could take my car into the dealership for new tires and to check my alignment. Boo :-( I spent most of the day sorting through paperwork alternated with being lazy. I went to jiu-jitsu that night. There were just 4 of us there so it was a nice intimate class. I learned a lot and got some amazing bruises.

July 6th - Today was a fairly normal day. My lazy self didn’t get out of bed to run so I almost didn’t get in the shower before they turned off the water (apparently they are doing matanince… though nothing was posted until I got home today…I had to check that I actually paid my water bill, it sorta freaked me out!) I decided to wear a skirt. Then decided I should iron said skirt and managed to burn my leg with the iron because I was just wearing underwear…. Note to self, don’t do that! Drove to work. It was busy-steady all morning due to being closed for the holiday. Got to see most of my usuals. Plus one new asshole. He tried to play the army card. Seriously? That, and he was from Ohio… After work, I decided to get the full on painful experience by going to the cross fit class. I survived. The hardest part is that I’m not in terrible shape but I should be in WAY better shape than I am right now. This cross fit class is sometimes incredibly demoralizing because I realize how weak (both physically and mentally) I am.

July 7th - I woke up really sore from cross fit and didn’t want to get out of bed. But I trudged my way to work, and had a fairly good day. Had a young guy call the deputies to the library because of something on facebook and it ended with the deputy showing the guy how to privatize his facebook. “Now use special characters... the things at the top of the keyboard...” It was almost too funny for words to watch the deputy with his deadpan expression.

Blah Blah Blah

June 11th - Saturday was our Summer Reading Kick Off Party! We had quite a few people come through and we had pizza at noon. We ordered way more pizza than was eaten so I went to deliver the extras around. I started at the police sub station but no one was home. Then I went to the fire station but they were off fighting a grass fire. So then I went to the senior center and conned the old folks into taking most of the pizzas. I still had a couple left after work so I swung by the fire station again and gave them the rest of the pizza since they were back from fire fighting.

June 12th - Sunday was my orchestra concert over in Carson City. It was a pops concert (train themed) that was at the governors mansion. It was a really pretty set up - right in the governor’s backyard (not that the governor was really there...) I invited the rest of the LC Librarians but no one showed up :-( However, the concert went crazy long since my director has issues shutting up and getting down to the playing bit. Overall, though it was a good concert. I was feeling a bit down when I got home, but I got to talk to my captain over skype which always perks me up.

June 13th - Nice lazy day until getting the crap beat out of me at jiu-jitsu. Sometimes those are the best Mondays.

June 14th - Happy Flag Day! I was surprised how many people didn’t know that flag day was the Army’s birthday.

June 15th – At work, the library crapper showed up again. He was being his usual creepy self and chilling at the computers. He had a towel over his lap and I thought he was wacking off. Though I didn’t see any hand movement so I didn’t want to go investigate. As we were closing up for the night, he stood up and all he was wearing was a long shirt and his boots. Both my boss and I were so shocked we didn’t know what to say! I did advert my eyes when he had to bend over... After he closed the doors, we called over to the sheriffs department and asked someone to come over. A deputy did and his eyes nearly popped out of his head when we told him all about our library crapper. We talked over our options of banning him from the library but came to no final conclusions. However, the deputy reported back to the sheriff and the sheriff made him go back and ban our crapper. Saga complete. I also had last minute changes for my wedding weekend that stressed me out a bit and made me all emotional and girly.

June 16th - It was a busy busy day. I was supposed to do rounds, but they decided against me doing it for some reason, so I worked in F-town until 4 and then headed up to Reno Airport. I flew out around 7pm to Phoenix (sitting next to a guy afraid of flying...) From Phoenix I flew home to Detroit! :-) On the second flight, I sat next to a guy named Steve from Bloomfield Hills who had been on my first flight. We had one of the most brutally honest conversations I have had with anyone in a long time. Very eye opening. And I slept on his shoulder and probably drooled a bit.

June 17th - My flight got into Detroit around 630 in the morning.. .yuck! However, my favorite brother-in-law was waiting to pick me up :-) He drove me to Royal Oak (stopping to get some excellent coffee) where I got to see Caroline and Euler and their house. I then borrowed Matt’s car and drove down to Saline to see Mom and Dad. 6 months is a long time to not see your parents! I showered and chilled with the ‘rents for a while before driving up to East Lansing. I completely forgot about Michigan Summer Construction and ran a bit late meeting up with Marie to go over wedding reception stuff.. oops! But DAMN! Marie lost 115 lbs for her wedding... it was amazing! It looked like she had eaten half of herself! Marie also is probably the most organized bride I have ever met. She had spreadsheets for everything. She also gave me a wad of “Oh Shit” money just in case. After going over the wedding reception stuff I bummed around EL seeing all my old favorite places. I walked through West Circle, the music building, DEM, by the stadium, and down Grand River. It made me incredibly nostalgic. When I was at MSU and walking in those places every day, I was a very different person. I had different dreams and goals and was on a very different path. Sometimes I wonder how my life has changed so radically and whether or not that is good thing. I wonder if I was to go back, would I make the same choices? Not that I have something against my life as it is... but, you never know what could have been.

After reminiscing, I met up with my friend Andy! We had dinner with Aaron and Amy and then the boys and I went to Crunchys. It had been WAY too long since I had been to my bar. We had multiple flights of beer and sweet nugs! It was great to catch up on conversation with the guys. I really miss all my friends back home. And our waiter was really nice and hot. So Andy tried to ask him out for me but he had a girlfriend. The only thing I truly missed from the night was getting pokey sticks from Gumbys. I also collected the MP3 player from Marie (since I was in charge of sound) and got triple the amount of chords I would need sound anything bad happen.

June 18th - Wedding Day! I got up, tried to pretty myself up and headed out to the reception site. I basically oversaw that everything got set up correctly and there were no misshaps. Konrad came to be my date and it was nice to see him and have someone there to keep me from being all stressed. After the wedding, people flooded the reception site. It was in the greenhouse so it got really toasty and people started complaining. In the effort to get fans working we blew the power and lost sound... right as we needed to introduce the new married couple! ugh I felt like such a failure. Lesson learned: I am not cut out for wedding planning! But it was beautiful and Marie looked amazing! After the pack up and clean up, I drove down to Milan to meet up with Beth, Bri, Kate, Andy, Laura, Dave, Laura, Brenden and Julie. We ate dinner, played lawn ball, sat and talked and overall had a fun and crazy time. It was so amazing to get to see everyone again! I spent the night on Beth and Bri’s couch.

June 19th – In the morning, I showered and went to breakfast wtih Beth, Brian, Dave and Laura t Big Boy. After hugs goodbye, I drove back to Saline to meet up with my family for Father’s Day brunch. :-) There was lots of hanging around and chatting as my family is apt to do. I had dinner with my dad at Bagger Dave’s (I paid and then got yelled at by mom) Dad and I talk about some of the most interesting things including the economy and his theories involving the politics. He dropped me off at the airport and I tried not to cry about going back to Nevada. When I was waiting in line, the guy in front of me (Kevin) recognized me. He apparently had been on my PHX to DTW flight the few days before. After going through security (I got to experience the full body scan for the first time... I also saw a few people opt out and get a very thorough feel up), I met up with Kevin. He bought me a cup of coffee and we chatted before our flight. I had more male attention in the airports this trip than I had had in the last 6 months in Nevada! The flights home were fairly uneventful, I tried to sleep as much as possible so that my drive back to Y-town wasn’t too scary.

Lots o' Army and the Return of the Chair Crapper...

June 1st - And back to work! After work I went to the dojo because I missed my class on Monday (due to it being a holiday….) The class offered was the cross fit class taught by the JPO. It hurt. A LOT! Seriously, I am way out of shape. People twice my age were kicking my ass (granted, they do this class regularly…) It was nice having someone egging my on while I was pushing though… its been a while since I’ve had someone there to make my continue.

June 2nd - My ass hurt from the cross fit class. And I had to do rounds which consisted of lifting boxes of books in and out of a truck. So not a good day….

June 3rd - work work work. I had story time in the morning which was horse themed. We made horse bookmarks with long yarn tails. I think it went over pretty well! After work, I drove myself back over the mountains for another fun weekend of army. This weekend we were in a hotel. My roommate was one of the French horn players. We also had an additional person staying with us (which I am totally cool with, but I wish someone had bothered to ask me first….)

June 4th - Army Army Army! We rehearsed our MPT in the morning and I ate lunch by myself (my bestie didn’t make it to drill). After lunch we had unit PT. I joined the running group but they spent more time talking then running so I just started doing laps around the track (knocked out a couple miles…)

June 5th - This fun filled army day was devoted to concert band – prepping for our big concert the following month. It did not go well. I personally only have problems with one song… but everyone agrees the commander is taking it WAY too fast. My fingers literally cannot move that fast. But I have the rest of the music down that some of the rest of the band is choking up on. The commander told us to bring our sleeping bags and pjs for next month since we weren’t leaving on Saturday until the music was correct for the concert…. Awesome…

June 6^th – had a stupid emotional, mind fuck type of day. I hate it when I get like that. So far the only cure that I have found is go to bed.

June 7th - Back to work! And to make it a fantastic day, the library chair crapper strikes again. Luckily I did not find it so I did not have to clean it! Yuck… It’s just absolutely disgusting! After work I drove over to Carson for my orchestra rehearsal.

June 8th - In the morning we found “cave paintings” in the bathroom from the day before. We think the work of the chair crapper, but that goes unverified…

June 9th - Since I was on orders, I had the day off of work so I got up at a reasonable hour and drove over the mountains to Camp Parks (3^rd weekend in a row…) There were a TON of cops our on I80… the entire stretch of highway seemed to be one big speed trap. I met up with my MPT midafternoon to have a rehearsal. We had replayed Garrido with a clarinet player from the Oklahoma band (the 395^th) Great player. Seemed to be enjoying watching our antics. After our rehearsal I went and found a hotel and relaxed for a bit. Then I got really girly and went shopping. Found a really cute lavender sundress for $15! For dinner I went to applebees and ate at the bar. I was watching some MMA fighting until it switched to some karate sport. Except that people didn’t fight, they just went through the movements for show. When the girls did it it looked like strippers without a pole who screamed instead of smiled… very odd! The Oklahoma clarinetist came and joined me for a drink and we had a fairly good chat. He wants to recruit me to his band solely to organize his music library!

June 10th - Gig day! Our gig was to play a change of command at the San Jose MEPS station. It was mixed serious so it was a bit interesting. It was sunny, but didn’t run too long. And they really appreciated us being there! Gave us certificates and everything! Boland got a field promotion with his! After a bit of a scuttle, I got back to Camp Parks. I stopped by and saw Leming at the combat medics school before driving myself back to Nevada.

May, May, May!

May 20th - During my lunch break I went to pick up Laura, Kate and Andy from the Reno Airport! It was soooo nice to get to see them! We picked up In ‘n Out shakes and I took them back to work with me. They chilled around F-town and the library until I got off work. Then I drove them the scenic route back to Y-town. We grabbed some pizza and enjoyed an evening of laughs.

May 21st – It was a fun filled day with my peeps J I drove us up to Dayton where we met up with Summer to go to Virginia City. Virginia City is this old town up in the mountains with a lot of old stuff. There was also a store with barrels of candy. I also had a deep fried snickers. Seriously, if you ever get the chance… have one!! So worth the 10 miles you have to run afterwards… After Virginia City, we went and saw the movie Bridesmaids which was rather hysterical though sad at points. When Kate was using the rest room, she overheard a whole bunch of old ladies who were horrified that Bridesmaids wasn’t a romantic movie. Then we went to the bowling alley to play the gambling bowling. Kate was the big winner of the night!

May 22nd – It was a perfect, lazy day J We watched movies, ate fattening food and played hilarious games. And blinged bracelets. Sometimes, it’s better not to ask. I took everyone to my Mexican restaurant and introduced everyone to sopapilla!

May 23rd – It was a rough morning. I drove everyone up to Reno and we had In ‘n Out (which was awesome!) but then I had to drop Laura, Kate and Andy off at the airport. It was incredibly depressing. The end. Well, then I went to jiujitsu.

May 24th – work work work.

May 25th – work work work HAPPY TOWEL DAY work work work

May 26th - I got to work at 7am and made sure everything was set up. The rest of the county library staff trickled in after 8:30 and we headed over for the benefits fair over at the court house. We picked up our info packets and took our seats. The guy who introduced me to the dojo in town turns out to be a JPO with gun and all. He had to be at the same benefits fair and came and sat down right next to me. I told him that court rooms gave me hives; he said he was in them all the time slandering his kids. The benefits meeting itself was pretty boring. My eyes glazed over most of the time and I still feel like I need every single type of insurance known to man. I did get some free stress balls and other fun giveaways. There was a drawing and I of course entered it. JPO gave me shit about it; he said that those knives were going to be his. Turns out I won (a blue ray player instead of the knives) so I got to give him shit. The rest of the day consisted of an all staff meeting (excluding a few key members who were sick). They of course gave me shit for the JPO sitting next to me. The other librarians believed he was trying to flirt with me because he kept fidgeting. I claim the benches were just that uncomfortable… think worst church pews ever. It was a long staff meeting but I think it was pretty productive.

May 27th - it was a fun filled work day and then I drove over the mountains for Army Time…. I met up with some of the other 191sters in the barracks. There were also another unit that was there with us in the barracks. They had set up a projector and were watching movies. With beer. Good way to stretch out after a long drive.

May 28th - Army, Army, Army. This was our makeup drill for missing the drill in April due to the budget crisis. We came, we practiced, we ate. After work, more eating.

May 29th - More Army Fun! For some reason, I was having an emotionally shitty day and I kind of shut down for a bit. After work I took a nice long nap and then joined Angel and the rest of the people hanging out with the other unit in our building. There ended up being a lot of drama with them which I am not happy to have been apart of in retrospect. Wish I had been informed of what was going on when people found out!

May 30th - Happy Memorial Day! We had a gig at the Presido over near the Bay (which was absolutely beautiful!) I was tasked for being the shot gun for the equipment truck… which everyone knows is a bad idea since I have no idea where I am most of the time and I am such a shitty navigator. Luckily the driver, SSG Clark knew where he was going (because the bus also left us behind too…) When we crossed the Bay Bridge, the toll collector tried to buy me in marriage from SSG Clark. It was incredibly strange…and creepy… When we got to the job site, Boland and I weren’t in the marching bit so we got to unload the entire truck ourselves as the rest of the unit fine tuned its entrance. (Go Double Reeds!) Then, when we were chilling around, a random SPC asked me what was with the pimp stick. It took me a moment to realize he meant the drum major’s mace! I guess pimp stick is as good a description as any… After the gig, I drove my ass back to Nevada (good decision!)

May 31st - Was my day off… my holiday! Luckily the library was closed as well so I could catch up on my sleeping and being lazy…