The Hoosier State

On the day that I had my stupid dentist appointment, I was really ready to bitch to you all about it. But, now that it’s been weeks and weeks, it doesn’t seem as necessary anymore. So, I’ll just tell you that I went to the dentist for a cleaning, for which I made an appointment. . . and then I had my x-rays and waited and waited and waited until they told me that the hygienist was too busy and wouldn’t be able to clean my teeth that day. I was pretty irritated.

Next topic: Indiana!

So. . . I made my way to Indiana late in August, and it was THE best kind of trip ever in the whole world because it was a surprise trip. It was a surprise to my favorite friend from my crappiest job ever, and it was a surprise to Miss Fred and her brother. Surprises! Surprises! Wheeeeee!

I’m pretty sure my friend has the best husband in the history of the world. He coordinated this super secret surprise just to brighten her day. They were having a party at their place, and he figured it would be a good time to just have me randomly show up. And, so I did. And, it was fun. It was fun when she said, “What are you doing here?!”. He he he he. I like to be a surprise.

It wasn’t as fun when she ran over the cat with the Gator while she drove me all over their gigantic new property. But, except for that, it was fun.

Oooh, but the fun started well before then. You see, when you’re a surprise, things get complicated. There were storms in Chicago the night I flew in. Which is all fine and dandy, except I had a stop in Chicago before I got to Indianapolis. And, Chicago went ahead and made us sit on a plane for 732 hours, and then decided we weren’t going anywhere else.

I followed about 9,026,712 people to the customer service counter to attempt to rectify the situation and find a place to stay for the night. HA HA HA! Funny story. There wasn’t anywhere left to stay by the time I got to the friendly airline representative. And, American Airlines cares so much about their clientelle that they basically told me to shove it up my ass and sent me packing.

I slept on the floor of the Chicago airport that night. And, let me just tell you, it’s not quite as glamourous as you might think. In fact, it’s wickedly uncomfortable, and a little scary.

The most sucky part, though, is that there are several people who would have driven to Chicago to pick me up to save me from sleeping on the stupid airport floor. . . but that would have ruined the surprises, so I couldn’t call and ask them to do that.

Luckily, I met a sweet 17 year old girl who was flying by herself for the first time, and she, too, was screwed, and a little intimidated by the whole sleeping at the airport concept. So, we stuck together, which made it mildly more tolerable. But, more importantly, gave me a photographer.

In honesty, I was happy to spend that extremely uncomfortable, slightly scarey night on the airport floor because seeing a good friend and spending time with the kids was worth every miserable toss and turn. No really, it was.

Sister in town!

One of my non-baby sisters finally came to visit, and that visit happened to be really close to her birthday, so woohoo!

Her visit also happened to be RIGHT before I moved. And she happens to have 2 kids. SO. Maybe you’ll recall that I used to live in 620 square feet. With 2 dogs. And, if you think about it for a second, you might realize that those 620 square feet, less the space taken up by all of the boxes full of my crap, is less than 620 square feet. And, then if you do the math, you might find out that sticking 2 adults, 2 children, and 2 dogs in that much space is an extremely uncomfortable situation.

We did a lot of fun stuff in a very short amount of time. We had dinner at the Oasis, where my nephew pretended his pickle slice was a boat. You might not think that’s anywhere close to as adorable as it was, but that’s probably because you haven’t seen him do it.

We went to see the bats, but I suck and we were late and they were out, but it was dark, so it wasn’t as cool as seeing them right as the sun sets.

We had dinner at Kerbey Lane, and my niece threw a knife at me, and that was fun. Then she screamed THE WHOLE TIME because she wanted eggs. Or she wanted to leave. Or whatever. It was cool.

They went to a dinosaur park, and they had ice cream and saw the moo cows. Then they went to Radijazz, which was apparently the most fun those kids have ever had because they stayed there forever.

I hadn’t seen her kids for like 2 years, so it was good to spend some time with them. More importantly, it was good that they know who I am now. And, even though I am the Aunt Cheryl (nevermind), they still like me and want to come back, so I must not suck that bad even though there’s no jumping on my sofa, and you have to say please and thank you, and I don’t tolerate whining, and I’m just so full of rules and boringness.

Here’s a glimpse at the little monkeys:

Skydiving

Yep, I went skydiving. . . and guess what? I’m broken.

I waited pretty much all day long to jump out of a plane. Apparently, appointments mean nothing to crazy skydiving types. So, we showed up and waited. Forever.

Finally, the skydiving guys came running over from their last jump and told us to run inside and get ready to go because the sun had started setting, and apparently, it’s illegal to jump after dark. So, if we were going to get up, we had to hurry.

Right, so that little skydiving prep course that one might expect to endure. . . the one where they tell you what to expect, or better yet, what to do if something goes wrong. . . I didn’t get that.

What I did get is thrown into a harness really, really fast, groped as he tightened the harness, nervous laughter when I offered to pay him extra to do it again, and instructions to run to the plane NOW! NOW! NOW!

And, off we went.

Any normal person might expect to have some sort of reaction to going up in a half-open plane, not yet attached to the guy with the parachute. Not me. I leaned over to watch how far up we were going, not even the slightest bit anxious.

A normal person might expect to have some sort of reaction when the guy says, “I’m just gonna walk you through as we go. . . hope you’re a fast learner!” and then really quickly hooks you up to him and inches both of you to the edge of the plane.

A normal person might expect to have some sort of reaction when they TUMBLE OUT OF THE PLANE and speed toward the earth at a very fast pace.

Not me. No adrenaline. No anxiety. No shock. No fear. No reaction whatsoever. Until I realized that I’d just leaped from a plane and it did not affect me at all. . . at which time I had a reaction that went like this, “OK. I’m certifiably insane. I just jumped from a plane, I’m flying through the air, and I’m not even remotely terrified or exhilirated”.

The dude thought I passed out because I didn’t make a sound. I didn’t scream. I didn’t hoot or holler. Nothing. He grabbed my head and said, “Are you OK?!”, and I think he was disappointed when I said yes.

He asked if I was scared and we discussed, very briefly, how unaffected I was. . . and then he asked if we could do some spins and turns and fun stuff. I didn’t care. I mean, at that point, the parachute was deployed, and even if I had been at all scared before, the part that would have scared me was over.

And, so we twirled and turned and stopped mid-air and it was great fun. I still had no adrenaline rush at all, which is remarkably disappointing. When you go to jump out of a plane, you usually do it specifically for the adrenaline rush. But, at least it didn’t suck.

In fact, it’s pretty cool how much control he had over the parachute. I had no idea you could just stop in the air. And, truthfully, I guess I didn’t even really think you could control the movement at all.

He pointed to the exact spot he said we would land, and I argued that there’s no way he’d hit it dead on because seriously. And, he insisted he could, and I told him he was ridiculous. . . and then we landed EXACTLY WHERE HE SAID WE WOULD. That was pretty cool.

People say that skydiving is something you either love or hate, and I guess I’m the freak who is the exception. I didn’t love it so much that I need to go back and do it again. But, I didn’t hate it either. It was neat to learn about it. It was cool to spin around in the air, and I like that I can now say that I’ve done it. But, I doubt I’ll ever pay another $160 to do it again. If someone else wants to pay for it, I’d totally do it again. But, there is no love and no hate. I feel pretty much the same about skydiving as I do about diving into a pool. It’s no big deal.

Which makes me think I’m broken.

There are photos somewhere. . . but naturally, they’re not in my possession at this time. If I ever get them, I’ll share. I’m pretty sure you all want to see me harnessed up. . . or better yet, being groped by the harnesser.

Catching up. . . YE for Kids

Hi, I’m 2 months behind.  Sorry.  I’m gonna try to catch up, but you should know the past month of my life has been remarkably boring.  Excrutiatingly boring.  Exceptionally, painfully boring.

So, way back in August, we had the YE for Kids event which benefited the Council on At-Risk Youth.  And, I worked my tail off to put this event on, and we had all kinds of awesome stuff that came through (like a steel drum band and a kick ass caterer). 

The event was fantastic.  Beautiful.  Perfectly planned and executed.  The food was simply amazing.  The band set the mood in a very smooth, tropical way.  The hula dancers got guests to limbo.  We had a really awesome time.  I was thrilled to death with the quality of the event, and the dedication of our vendors.

You can see photos of the event here: http://www.youngexecs.net/photos/thumbnails.php?album=7

What I was not so thrilled about was that no one from the Council on At-Risk Youth showed up for the event.  And, they didn’t just not show up, they didn’t even respond to my attempts to contact them anytime during the planning, with the exception of the initial phone call when I told them they’d been chosen as the beneficiary.

We still sent the proceeds to the organization, though there was a lot of talk about redirecting the funds to a different charity – one that would participate.  But, honestly, it’s extremely disappointing to put your heart and soul into an event only to be completely ignored by the people you put the event on for.

Thankfully, I was surrounded by people I love. . . so it was well worth it (even though we should have taken the money and had a really, really, really good weekend).