As you may or may not know I enjoy traveling as much as I possibly can. I'm not sure why this is exactly but perhaps it comes from the fact that the city i live in gets cold in October and doesn't warm up until typically June, just a possibility. I'm very fortunate that I have many friends around the country and therefore have somewhere to stay in many areas of the country. I choose to go to Florida on my latest trip to visit my very good friend Ashley from college. I have a rule that vacation begins as soon as you get to the airport therefore I can eat whatever I want and spend as much money as I want to. This was going to be a very quick trip Friday evening to Sunday evening because as I am now an adult and have a big girl job where they expect me to work Monday thru Friday (crazy I know I must find a way to turn these work weeks into 3 or 4 days rather than 5).
I began my trip at Midway airport where I proceeded to enjoy a tasty treat of combos before getting onto the plane. This plane had XM radio (my favorite) and I was able to listen to Dr. Laura Berman (another favorite) the entire way to Atlanta. Unfortunately the topic Dr. Laura decided to talk about was very close to home for me and I spent the majority of this flight fighting back tears for fear that my fellow passengers may think I was crazy or suicidal or both. Didn't stop listening to the show however because I feel a little punishment in life is necessary. Once I landed in Atlanta I attempted to find a McDonald's so I could enjoy some delicious french fries while I waited for my flight. However apparently terminal D in Atlanta's airport doesn't have McDonald's and I had to suffer through a medium Burger King Fries, they were very difficult to force down but somehow I managed. Landing in Tampa I was very excited to see Ashley so I rushed down to the pick up area thinking it's 10:30 at night no one will be here. Clearly i was wrong not only were there other people there I am pretty sure the entire city of Tampa had gone on vacation that week and was returning at this exact time. Ashley was traversing thru traffic that had to be made up of Florida's most moronic and I was climbing over people to try to get to her car. Having traversed what felt like the worst obstacle course of my life I finally got to Ashley and off we went to Bradenton.
As it was quite late we decided to go grab a casual drink and get some food. Ashley took me to the most happening place in Bradenton, the local Applebees. Interesting I thought that Applebee's in Chicago get very little patronage yet here in Bradenton it was clearly the place to be and be seen!!! We met up with a friend of Ashley's there who was very nice but clearly was a little taken aback by my choice of conversation topic and openness about my life, I believe he may have asked Ashley later if I was drunk. After enjoying quite a few Sangria's and checking out all the locals we headed back to Ashley's to go to bed and get ready for a fun filled weekend.
The rest of our weekend was made up with a lot of sleeping in, manicures and pedicures complete with wine, some sun worshiping by the pool complete with a canadian man friending us, checking out some yachts (at which point I told Ashley she is no longer allowed to date any man that doesn't own a yacht) and drinking bottles and bottles of wine. The peak of the weekend had to be our outing to The Lost Kangaroo bar where we did some great people watching including some folks that looked like they were straight off the Beverly Hillbillies set and a wedding party that had apparently chosen this wonderful establishment for their wedding reception.
This trip concluded with my flights home, among which both were oversold and I witnessed one man throw a "Meet the Parents" esk fit in the aisle of the plane because his fiancee didn't have a seat. As I stood outside the airport in Chicago waiting for my cab I was deeply saddened to be back in Chicago where it was sleeting and feeling a little blue that my adventure was over. Then I got into my cab and listened the whole way home to the cab driver as he informed me that he had come up with a cure for diabetes and was currently working on a cure for cancer too, give him about 2 months and that would be done too.
This is when I realized even at home my life is full of daily adventures and interesting characters.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Current Events (Camping, Dating, and Spinning)
For those of you who are loyal followers of my blog (which I believe there are exactly 3 of you, but I shall continue) I apologize that it has been a while since my last post but I have been quite a busy woman the past few weeks.
I'll begin with camping. As many of you know my family has an annual camping trip that occurs in the fall. This camping trip consists of all my uncles and my cousins. I have a very large family so at times this group can make up anywhere from 10 - 20 people. This year one of my cousins decided that we should go camping for Friday and Saturday night rather than just Saturday night. I agreed because why not...so I packed up Thursday night and headed back to the great state immediately following work on Friday night. My cousin who lives about 90 minutes north west of me and I decided to car pool. After packing up her car stopping for a brief McDonald's dinner in which the idiot working the drive thru shorted us one order of french fries we were off. On the way we managed to open every single bag of snacks we had brought to eat for the weekend, stalk one of our uncles by calling all the numbers we had for him until we finally were able to sufficiently harass him and read through one entire issue of Cosmo magazine (very educational for those of you not familiar with it). Friday night out on "The Land" was very uneventful, we drank sat around a fire and retired to the very comfortable trailer inside which we slept on a sleep number bed, we were really roughing it. Around 4am I heard my cousin in a very panicky but trying not to panic voice say "Morgan, Morgan are you awake?" "Yeah I'm awake, what's up I reply?" "there is a lump under my sleeping bag that I am pretty sure is a mouse!!" With each word the steadiness of her voice got less and less. I agreed to investigate the "mouse" with my flashlight which revealed that there was not in fact a mouse and that my cousin was in fact hallucinating. Saturday was a fairly relaxing day which consumed of running to the local Wal-Mart 45+ minutes away and driving back with the top down on the convertible while blasting the heat, pretending to help the rest of my uncles and cousins unpack their vehicles when they arrived and eating and drinking a lot. That evening was actually one of the calmest evenings ever had out on the land minus my cousins presentation of I'm drunk and now am going to be mean and throw things at you midnight show. Best line of this show was "In the morning I am going to allow you to apologize to me" How gracious I thought as I not exactly being the poster child for sobriety passed out. That pretty much sums up my camping trip this year but as always it was quite a blast and can't wait to return next year as we never really know what to expect!!!
Since completing my marathon I have been contemplating what I might want my next physical challenge to be. I have fallen upon a half ironman triathalon following the logic that I used to be a competitive swimmer, and I just ran a marathon so really all I have to pick up is cycling. So I decided to begin attending spinning classes at my gym. I went to the second class last week Tuesday in which at one point I really thought I was starring death in the face. The class began innocently enough a little warm up a little standing run etc. Then as we got into the meat and potatoes of the class I realized the teacher had to be some sort of spawn of Satan's. Each time I thought we might be done with this set and back of the intensity she uttered these horrible words, "Increase resistance if you can please" and so politely too, please, please shut up I thought. So I continue spinning my legs wishing for the end, then suddenly eminem's "I'm not afraid" comes on and the music just speaks to me, I get a second wind I am flying I am EMINEM and I - am - not - afraid. Then the song ended and I was back in my own personal hell. By the end of the class I could not only wring out my clothese there was a little puddle of sweat on the floor, "thats hot" I thought as I walked out of the spinning studio.
Finally I had the enjoyment of going on a second date with a very nice gentleman in the past few weeks. I enjoyed the first date with this individual hence the second date but I had a few reservations among which was the fact that he was 13 years my senior. But I thought oh well just go have a good time see what happens. Well by the end of this date I had drank a pitcher and a half of margaritas discovered that he was divorced and had two adorable children that he sees daily. Not only is he divorced but has been divorced for less than 6 months. Oh well I figured this was a cue for me to drink more heavily and turn into "Amber" because who doesn't love Amber???
So as you can see I have been quite busy living life to the fullest, meeting as many new people as possible and making sure no drink out there goes undrunk!!!!
I'll begin with camping. As many of you know my family has an annual camping trip that occurs in the fall. This camping trip consists of all my uncles and my cousins. I have a very large family so at times this group can make up anywhere from 10 - 20 people. This year one of my cousins decided that we should go camping for Friday and Saturday night rather than just Saturday night. I agreed because why not...so I packed up Thursday night and headed back to the great state immediately following work on Friday night. My cousin who lives about 90 minutes north west of me and I decided to car pool. After packing up her car stopping for a brief McDonald's dinner in which the idiot working the drive thru shorted us one order of french fries we were off. On the way we managed to open every single bag of snacks we had brought to eat for the weekend, stalk one of our uncles by calling all the numbers we had for him until we finally were able to sufficiently harass him and read through one entire issue of Cosmo magazine (very educational for those of you not familiar with it). Friday night out on "The Land" was very uneventful, we drank sat around a fire and retired to the very comfortable trailer inside which we slept on a sleep number bed, we were really roughing it. Around 4am I heard my cousin in a very panicky but trying not to panic voice say "Morgan, Morgan are you awake?" "Yeah I'm awake, what's up I reply?" "there is a lump under my sleeping bag that I am pretty sure is a mouse!!" With each word the steadiness of her voice got less and less. I agreed to investigate the "mouse" with my flashlight which revealed that there was not in fact a mouse and that my cousin was in fact hallucinating. Saturday was a fairly relaxing day which consumed of running to the local Wal-Mart 45+ minutes away and driving back with the top down on the convertible while blasting the heat, pretending to help the rest of my uncles and cousins unpack their vehicles when they arrived and eating and drinking a lot. That evening was actually one of the calmest evenings ever had out on the land minus my cousins presentation of I'm drunk and now am going to be mean and throw things at you midnight show. Best line of this show was "In the morning I am going to allow you to apologize to me" How gracious I thought as I not exactly being the poster child for sobriety passed out. That pretty much sums up my camping trip this year but as always it was quite a blast and can't wait to return next year as we never really know what to expect!!!
Since completing my marathon I have been contemplating what I might want my next physical challenge to be. I have fallen upon a half ironman triathalon following the logic that I used to be a competitive swimmer, and I just ran a marathon so really all I have to pick up is cycling. So I decided to begin attending spinning classes at my gym. I went to the second class last week Tuesday in which at one point I really thought I was starring death in the face. The class began innocently enough a little warm up a little standing run etc. Then as we got into the meat and potatoes of the class I realized the teacher had to be some sort of spawn of Satan's. Each time I thought we might be done with this set and back of the intensity she uttered these horrible words, "Increase resistance if you can please" and so politely too, please, please shut up I thought. So I continue spinning my legs wishing for the end, then suddenly eminem's "I'm not afraid" comes on and the music just speaks to me, I get a second wind I am flying I am EMINEM and I - am - not - afraid. Then the song ended and I was back in my own personal hell. By the end of the class I could not only wring out my clothese there was a little puddle of sweat on the floor, "thats hot" I thought as I walked out of the spinning studio.
Finally I had the enjoyment of going on a second date with a very nice gentleman in the past few weeks. I enjoyed the first date with this individual hence the second date but I had a few reservations among which was the fact that he was 13 years my senior. But I thought oh well just go have a good time see what happens. Well by the end of this date I had drank a pitcher and a half of margaritas discovered that he was divorced and had two adorable children that he sees daily. Not only is he divorced but has been divorced for less than 6 months. Oh well I figured this was a cue for me to drink more heavily and turn into "Amber" because who doesn't love Amber???
So as you can see I have been quite busy living life to the fullest, meeting as many new people as possible and making sure no drink out there goes undrunk!!!!
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