That Road was Toe' Up!

It was a Max event, and I realized I was finally getting to meet my business partner, Fred, for the first time! When I saw him, he was a she. Fred was a 70-year-old woman. Anti-climactic. Well, a small group of us were wasting time before a large-group late lunch at an Italian restaurant. The other woman with Fred was too hungry and couldn't wait a couple hours before she ate, so we went to get pizza instead. 

Later on, I found myself in some sort of stall (think bathroom stall) except it was very narrow-- my head barely fit in it (no problem fitting the rest of me in though). For some reason I kept sticking my head out to look around, then back in, then out again. As I moved my head, I noticed the stall walls kinda smelled like urine. Pleasant.

Later still, I found myself at my parents' house was some other people. Two others and myself were standing in the driveway and we decided to do some shots. Four to be exact. Different ones too- one was vodka, but that's all I remember. I said, "I don't feel anything yet, but in a little bit I'm REALLY going to be feeling it!" thinking I was going to be slurring and stumbling. I went to my old bedroom and put on winter clothes to play in the snow (that wasn't on the ground a minute ago). I put on tan Carhartt pants first, then my regular snow pants so I would be nice and warm.

I was at Perfect Games in the middle of the day talking to the cashier, who was a girl I know. She asked if I wanted to start doing the register during the day. I thought, well, it would probably be slow and boring, but I could get a lot of reading done, so it didn't sound like a bad idea. Then my friend, Mary Goodrich showed up and said she had a guy friend on e-harmony that I should go out with. I wasn't particularly fond of the idea, but I thought I'd hear her out. So I followed her to her computer, where I thought she was going to show me a picture of him. Instead, my friend Cody showed up to give me a ride home, and I thought he would maybe take me to him, but he wasn't going to. 

Next thing I know, I'm in the back seat of the minivan Cody's driving and his friend, Luke is in the front seat. We're heading south out of Waterloo, toward my parents' house. We were following some other crew guys that Cody and Luke had been working with that day. There was a pickup, then a pickup with an 18-wheeler trailer hooked up to it in front of us. Apparently Cody thought they were driving too slow, because he tried to pass the truck/trailer. That driver wasn't very thrilled about the idea of getting passed, so he started swerving. Then Cody started swerving, too, but not because he was losing control. There were big divots on the very edge of the shoulder, so I was getting kinda freaked out that we would swerve off the road and get stuck in one and get thrown off the road. We were crossing the overpass where highway 21 crosses over hwy 20, except it wasn't an overpass, it was a bridge... with water underneath it. It had been flooded recently, so there were still signs of that and the water was still really high. The bridge was undergoing serious construction work, and in real life there would be no possible way of crossing. Cody then said the brake behind his front brake (aka, the rear brake) had gone out. We continued across the bridge in the minivan, driving right through this completely torn up concrete, without a problem. Then we got to a different part of the bridge, where it was as steep as the streets of San Francisco! And the concrete of the road looked like an earthquake had gone through! We got to the top, then a worker helped our van over by pulling us forward with his bare hands (kinda like an adult picks up a toddler). 

After that, we got out and walked- there was some kind of congestion in the road. I hopped on Cody's back for a piggyback ride, and we called to Luke to let him know we went around (around as in, OFF the bridge... where the water should be). Since the water was so high at this point, I could reach out and touch the water, and there was mud over the road. Suddenly, for a second, it was like I was being pulled across the bridge instead of riding piggyback. Then I said, "it would either suck or be a really great day to work at McDonald's, Hardee's, Wendy's, etc." Because now instead of "the Waterloo bridge" being out of commission it was like "the Waterloo burger joint" was out of commission!

Wait a 2nd...

It was the first day of school. For some reason, I went back....to 2nd grade. I was still an adult, however. It was on a college campus. And there were a lot of people I knew. My brother was there, and he helped me find my class and the cafeteria. I had a map, but I think I lost it. The president of the "college" told people we weren't supposed to walk around campus for leisure because it wasn't a safe neighborhood. We were only allowed to walk between classes. It was a beautiful campus though- looked like a 'rich' neighborhood- so I was kinda bummed about the "no walking" rule.

On my way to class, I got really warm; I was wearing dark blue jeans, a yellow T and a yellow sweater...and it was 80 degrees out. I thought about taking off the sweater, but I knew the classroom would be cold.

I finally found my way to my first class, English- my favorite. I was a little late, but I felt like the teacher liked me...even though it was the first day. I guess I just knew she was going to like me. My mom was there, along with other adult friends, like my friends Matthew & Tracy. It was hard to find a place to sit because the room was so full, and some tables had newspapers laid out where people had gotten up but were coming back. The front of the room had individual desks, like we sat in as kids, and the sides and back had lunch tables- the long kind with flip-down benches. I finally found a spot in the back of the room at a table. I was carrying my sleeping bag with me, because I needed it for my dorm room, so i must have been going straight there after my classes. 

After class, we were messing around, and one guy stood up and told the drummer from the classroom across the hall to start playing/rapping so he could dance. The drummer was the lead singer from Limp Bizkit (only it was more like Vanilla Ice or something) and the dancing guy just said "Hey Limp!" and "Limp" knew to start playing/rapping so he could dance. We all kinda thought he was dumb.

Just before we left, there appeared boxes of apples in the room. Some apples were red, some were more greenish, so I took some good ones with me, because that's what they were there for. The apples kinda represented the people in my class, and I was rearranging them so that the redder ones were together (as they represented the people I knew, and I wanted us all to sit together). 

It was my friend, Tracy's birthday, so her and her husband decided to go out and celebrate after class. They were going to head to a hotel to have a party. Since I didn't know the area and they hadn't yet decided on a hotel, I wanted them to wait for me so I could follow them. But they didn't. Typical, considerate friends. So I was going to call Tracy to see where they ended up. I was carrying with me a bottle of liquor. It was clear like vodka, but I think much stronger. I took a swig of it, but didn't cringe at how strong it was. It was more like drinking slightly flavored water. Then my phone rang.... except it wasn't a phone, it was the bottle of liquor! THAT was my "phone!!" I didn't know how to answer it (how do you answer a bottle-of-liquor-phone?!), so I kept rotating it to see if there were any clues. I asked the woman close by, she had no idea. I took a swig, that didn't answer it, then finally found a type of button that answered the phone! It was like a "counter"-- the number went up each time you take a call; I actually hit it twice, so it went up to 4. It was Matthew calling to tell me where they went.

White Trash Weddings

I went to a basketball game with two other people, and we sat in the nosebleeds. We were there for some little boy... can't remember how- maybe we took him with us?? Anyway, we each carried our own large cooler (by large, I mean mine was the smallest at 28 quarts) full of ice and beer. How I carried it up the bleachers, I haven't a clue. Instead of getting schnockered, however, I had to leave early for a wedding (I don't remember ever taking anything out of the cooler anyway). The wedding was just outside of La Porte City, close to where I grew up. It was a fairly formal wedding, even though this really fancy venue was on a gravel road. The bride's name was Lindsay, I think, but can't be too sure. And her last name WAS Stutter, and would now be Stoddard. I thought it was odd how close the two names were. But what was odder, there were two ceremonies, about two hours apart! The first one, which I was in attendance for, was like a party, the other was an actual wedding ceremony. You might think it sounds like the reception was before the wedding, but that wasn't the case at all. Everyone who came to the first ceremony was truly expecting a wedding! So during the "party ceremony," I hung out with bridesmaids who were wearing black dresses. I don't think I knew any of them. In fact, I don't think I knew the bride or groom, either! As if this scenario wasn't odd enough, it was actually like the same bride was marrying two different grooms at the two ceremonies! It made no sense to me. At one point, when I was standing inside the church (which at this point looked just like the foyer of the church I grew up in), I saw my friend, Gertrude's husband, James in a tux, as if HE was one of the grooms! But that thought didn't last long, because somehow I knew that he wasn't going to marry this Lindsay girl. 

Well, since I had time between ceremonies, I guess I decided to leave... but I didn't have the basketball game in mind. I was going to head back up to Cedar Falls, though. I didn't know for sure how to get home, so I pulled to the side to punch it into my Garmin. I pulled onto a side road and turned to face the road I would continue down, and as I sat there (uphill), the "Resume" button on my cruise control acted as a Resuming parking brake without having any brake on! 

*PAUSE... while I wake up and write down my dream...*

I was back at the wedding. I never did sit through a wedding, but I hung out w/ the wedding party and guests later. We were surrounded by water, and there were small springboards (think sideways diving boards- sorta like a skier platform on the back of a boat, except w/ springs) off the edge of... whatever cement platform/ground we were on. So we kept jumping off the ground, onto the diving board and into the water. And there was some kind of network of cables above our heads, so I would climb up on those and sit and do flips and somersaults off of it. None of us were dressed for the occasion (of playing around), but we didn't care. I at least wasn't wearing anything too fancy... a part-white shirt, maybe like a baseball T, but it was brand new; I was grateful that my shirt wasn't ALL-white like one of the other girls (because I thought there's no way she's getting that shirt clean)! Next thing I know, we found mud. It was right where the water used to be that we were jumping into. This was the best mud you could imagine for playing in, sliding in and throwing... so that's what we did!