The Night Routine

So I promise myself on a daily basis that I will go to bed earlier, due to the daily hangover that greets me every morning. But I don't. At night I putter around. I do this and that. Check Facebook, email, and my friends' blogs. Then I have to chat with the roommates, get a bite to eat, wash my face, check everything online again, read a little, brush my teeth. Finally I go to sleep, promising myself to do better the next day.

Fourth of July

On the Fourth of July most people go to parades. I was IN one! Miss J works for the local Uni and Kate and I volunteered to pass out candy and tattoos with her. This car holds the land record for El Caminos -- sweet.

Once we were out of stuff Miss J and I rode, but not Kate. No Kate got commitments from small children that they will go to university. And she inspired adults that it's "not too late."

Yum! Lunch on the Uni and time with super fun new friends!

Every year LaVell Edward's Stadium becomes the Stadium of Fire (cue cheesy music). On a spur-of-the-moment decision Stranilla and I bought tickets off this 70-something "scalper." The show featured Glen Beck and SheDaisy and... The Jonas Brothers!

Kevin Jonas

Joe Jonas -- of whom I later dreamed.

And finally, Nick Jonas.

After shakin' like we just don't care, singing along to S.O.S, Burning Up, Paranoid, Year 3000 (trippy lyrics) and LoveBug, the fireworks began. Ooo, ahhh. Delightful.

Real Salt Lake

I generally don't like team sports. Baseball and football are too slow. Basketball just isn't interesting too me. But soccer. Soccer's sweet. A couple of weeks ago I got to go to a Real Salt Lake game at the new Rio Tinto Stadium. I sat next to my niece in some pretty sweet seats.

The RSL team on the bench.

My niece shook her drink then looked at me in surprise when it spilled all over her. The bathroom I was directed to was actually a locker room. My niece was having way to much instead of cleaning herself up. I used the time to take random photos of myself.

The team played Toronto and won 3-0. I guess I'm good luck. ;)

Glee

The Queen of Nonsense told me to check out this new series. She described it as High School Musical in TV format. It is not; though there is singing. I watched it with Kate who wondered if the lead chick was supposed to be the "blonde girl" from HSM. So don't think HSM. It will only confuse you.

Only the pilot is available (the rest comes in the fall). It has a fun cast of characters and a tight plot. There are some normal characters (see the lead guy and the teacher) and some abnormal ones (see gym teacher and the wife). The plot is modern and relevant. Although there is singing and dancing, it's not cheesy or sentimental. The main character (teacher) is good looking and (thus or also?) very likable. It not super drama (like OC or all the other teen shows) and it's not a sitcom.

Check out this clip of Journey's Don't Stop Believin' and also this link of Amy Winehouse's Rehab.

While we mourn the loss of Pushing Daisies and while this is completely different from Pushing Daisies and could never take its place, I will be watching this fall.

*Side note: guest starring this season are Josh Groban and Kristin Chenoweth! Could life get better; I submit it could not.

Observations

I was at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and noticed a sign that read "Your choice - $19.99" with a myriad of colors of a kitchen item (the "Beyond" portion of the store). I thought this was very generous of them. I just hate stores where you give them money and they give you something you didn't choose at all. 

Sitting at a stoplight a noticed a man with an interesting nose. This got me to thinking: an odd nose can really mess up a perfectly good face. 

The Tanners (of Full House) had a pretty big back yard for living in a town home. In fact, I'm pretty sure they parked in the neighbor's yard. Come to your own conclusion about their neighborhood plan here.

I said "What's up"

It was my first week in Germany. We stopped everyone on the streets. "Hallo! Wie geht's?" I asked an older gentleman. He gave me a strange look and replied. "You don't ask people you don't know how they're doing," Crolace explained to me. 

In America How-Are-You is synonymous with Hi, Hello, or any other greeting. No one expects a reply. I recall many conversations, passing friends on the way to and from university, and saying, "Hey, what's up?" to be answered with, "Hey, what's up?" and we walk on. 

And at the time I didn't mind, but since living in Germany I side with the Germans -- don't say things you don't mean. 

So, naturally I've stopped asking. But not everyone has gotten the memo. The receptionist at work never fails to ask.

"Good morning!" I say.

"Good morning!" she says. 

I'm almost out of sight. "How are you?" It is like she is waiting for me to ask first and then refuses to let it go.

"Fine," I call back. Does she really want me to round the corner back and have a heart-to-heart? I doubt it. 

The only time I do like the question, or rather a version of the questions is this. Instead of saying, "Tell so-and-so I said hi" I like to say "Tell so-and-so I said what's up." I think it's cuter than hi. 

So if I don't ask you how are you it's because, at least at that moment, I don't want to know. And if I do ask, I'm not just greeting you.

Music

Got the most exciting text from my mom and it was as follows: Josh is going to be on channel 11 @ 7.  (I know! My mom used the @ symbol.) So I rushed home and enjoyed all my favorite songs. Honestly, though I own every CD and DVD, I rarely listen to Josh; yet every time I do I just can't help but feel cheerful. He sang Lullaby and Weeping, both of which have an African vibe... not African-American but Africa Africa - as in South. Most of his songs have some international flare but these two are especially meaningful to me for some reason. These two songs especially remind me that there is a big world out there.

Music does that. It points out that there is a world beyond us. It gives us a chance to be in a space different than where we are. Through music we connect to distant people, ideas, and emotions. 

Not that everything I listen to is intensely meaningful and profound. I could not argue that there is much to gain from the JoBros and I don't profess to really "get" the musical genius of Cold Play. What I do get from music is a varied experience. I can grow, if only emotionally, from it. For a moment I'm elsewhere in someone else's life. I'm in Germany with Xavier Naidoo, in a London pub with Mika, in some smoky cafe with Matt Nathanson, at some venue in Long Beach with Sublime, then to 1960's Baltimore with Tracy Turnblad. I can synthesize their experiences -- expressed through music -- into mine.  

Paradoxically, music is a way for me to express or, rather, tap into my many sides. I listen to my Kanye before I got out on the town and Sissel on cool autumn days. There's Jesse McCartney for that leaving-work excitement ("Don't stress, don't stress, don't stress") and Claire de Lune for dinner time. We the Kings for the inner-teenager and John Mayer and Jason Mraz when I'm just being me.

It's almost as if my mom could have texted "Ben Folds/ Paramore/ Beach Boys / Michael Buble

is on" and I would have also expanded my world view while tapping into myself. Music just does that.

My Dad

On May 17th my dad died peacefully in his sleep. When I was in fifth grade he brought me a load of candy to my read-a-thon. I first saw the Little Mermaid and Evita and Sense and Sensibility with him (and also the Truth about Cats and Dogs, but I'm trying to forget that). He paid for the damage when I drove into my friends' garage door. I talked him into buying a ferret for himself, which I don't think he ever really liked. He took me on my first real trip to Disneyland. He told me I should be a librarian -- which made me laugh. He slipped me money every once in a while. He bought me a really ugly and expensive sweater. He rode the brake whenever he drove. He paid for college. He enjoyed shopping and paperwork.

I'm happy for him because now he isn't sick anymore. He can be who he always wanted to be, without the barriers of his body. I'm really going to miss him.

Trip to Europe

A few weeks ago I returned from my much-anticipated holiday to Germany, Austria, and France. 

We began in my mission stomping grounds in Frankfurt. We met up with Anni and Hannu (left), wonderful friends who happened to be in town from Finland, to tour Palmengarten and hang out at 

Römer.We shopped on Frankfurt's Ziel (right) and traipsed around Mainz and Mainz-Kastel, where I spent the first three months of my mission. 

Next we journeyed to Würzburg taking in the fortress and local Residenz (below). We loved the hotel there, Abs in Postkurcherl, 

and would recommend it to everyone. We stayed just one night in Middle-of-Nowhere, Germany -- aka Oberammergau  --  a couple hours outside of Munich. When the black plague stopped just short of Oberammergau the citizens, in gratitude to God, staged a 5-hour (yes, 5 hours! with a dinner break) passion play. It is now performed every ten years -next in 2010. In the meantime the city houses numerous tourists and woodcarvers. 

We wandered around and also toured Schloss Lindorf (right)-- a sister palace to Neuschwanstein, aka Sleeping Beauty's castle. That night I became addicted to Germany's version of Top Model a la Heidi Klum. 

We traveled then to the most musical city of all, Salzburg in Austria, meeting up with Hannah. First item of business -- Sound of Music Tour (below at Mirabell palace, where some of the Do-Re-Mi shots were filmed). 

We also toured the famous Fortress, the Mozart cites, the beautiful old city, Schloss Hellbrunn with it's trick fountains, and even happened upon an international music festival. 

After an overnight train with two interesting bedfellows we made it to Paris. In a whirlwind tour, we saw all the major sites -- Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the river Seine, Montmantre, the Louvre, and the inside of the d'Orsay museum.

I love the greeness of the area, the mustard fields, the gaudy beauty of the castles, the escape from "real" life, all of it made for a great trip.  

Anecdotes

The kid was a perpetual liar. Everything he said was unbelievable. But he just would not confess that none of it was true -- perhaps because he actually did believe the stories. He was from LA and talked about wrestling alligators. When boasting of his awesome Mexican cooking skills, I asked him if he could make Swedish meatballs. "Of course," he said and I wondered if he had heard me say "Swedish." He told us about how he got ran over by a car -- sometime in between the story about working construction and being manager at a hotel -- and I just couldn't take it any more. "I got ran over too... by a jumbo jet... it was the Concord at LaGuardia airport! After which I jumped on a train trestle and was subsequently run over." "But you're not dead," another kid --who just didn't get it -- piped up. "I know," I said with false sincerity, "That's the miracle of it." The kids just laughed as if I had made a joke we all understood. No, I was mocking the liar.

I hadn't read As You Like It but I was very excited to be seeing it at our local theatre. A little nervous too. It is Shakespeare after all, and I tend to understand it not based on the dialogue but rather on the action, as if watching a cartoon in Urdu. We stood in line to get our will-call tickets and there he was. He wore khaki pants, a blue sweater, and a baseball cap. Not as tall as I had imagined. Holy Hannah Montana, it was Edward Herrmann, aka Richard Gilmore. I had to move so I could respectfully "freak out" away from his celebrity glare. I watched him throughout the evening and contemplated and chickened out several times about approaching him. He was there alone but must have known someone in the cast because he was pulled into the action with Audrey (a character) doing a very silly dance that he seemed to already know. Frankly I was surprised his body was so agile -- he isn't a young buck, you know. The baseball cap was an odd accessory to the outfit so I can only guess he did not really want attention. The man must be recognized everywhere -- if not by Gilmore fans then by fans of something he's done in his nearly 40 years of acting. I did not approach. But I do have a good story.