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| Jeordie & Chad gig at Fibber Magees in Chandler |
A couple weeks ago, I had an evening Happy Hour with my ex-roommate Judge and he had a friend with him known as Marnier. At one point, Judge mentioned how Marnier was a singer/songwriter, so I suggested that he meet (and potentially collaborate with) Jeordie. This gig turned out to be his best opportunity, but unfortunately, I had forgotten to contact him earlier, so I texted him around 7:30 for a gig that had already started. Luckily, he made it out during her second (of two) sets, so he heard a good deal.
At the same time, my friend Psy had texted me to find out if I wanted to go see "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World." I am a big fan of "Arrested Development," but (or maybe, "therefore") it is hard for me to look at Michael Cera in his current state. I have no interest in that movie, but I told him to come by the Jeordie gig afterwards. He was already en route, and the movie had already started, so we went to Chipotle (btw, Chipotle > Everything) for dinner and then watched Jeordie's gig until he had to leave, which worked out perfectly with Marnier's arriving, so I went from one friend to another. Jeordie talked to Marnier after her gig for about 5 minutes, so hopefully a collaboration can happen in the near future.
Meanwhile, one of Jeordie's best friends of the past 10 years was in town with her 2-year-old daughter. She's a very good person that I've met several times before, so we chatted for a bit. She and Jeordie talked for a very long time. They seriously kicked around the idea of Jeordie staying over and then hanging out the following day, but she lives over an hour out of town, so the only way that could be feasible is if I were able to take her. Obviously, the invite was extended to myself and Chad as well. Despite the logical problems with this plan, we all agreed. An overnight stay at a resort sounded like a great idea for the extended weekend, and where her friend lived, it was more or less a resort.
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| Jeordie & The Mixology Project rock TMP |
The directions were kinda funny. We took the US-60 to the 202, and then exited Ellsworth and we drove on that road for the next 30-40 miles. That road would become Ellsworth, then Ellsworth Loop, then Ellsworth again, then curve and become Hunts Highway, and eventually, it would intersect Anthem Way. Eventually, like 3 miles after we gave up and called her friend for directions. She stayed on the phone with us as we tried to find her exact address, which was a big help! We arrived just before 3:30AM. We chatted with her for the next hour or so, and then we went to bed. There were five bedrooms: one master bedroom for our hostess, one guest room for Jeordie & Chad, one bedroom that was her daughter's playroom, one bedroom with a Hannah Montana motif, and one bedroom that was her office, basically. My room was the Hannah Montana room. Of course, it's barely a footnote at 4:30AM.
Two hours later, there was a knock at her front door and a continuous ringing of her doorbell. Perhaps now it a good time to note that Jeordie's friend is one of those gorgeous blonde types, except she's down-to-Earth and kind. Not that most gorgeous blondes aren't, but kindness isn't really a trait in the usual stereotype. The reason this information is relevant now is that the knocking lasted about 5 minutes, after which I snuck downstairs and peeked outside but there was no one there. The knocking/ringing resumed about 45 minutes later (I think there was a single knock or two in between) so I looked outside through her office and I saw a gray-haired gentleman walking to a black Tahoe. Having only had about 2 hours sleep, I considered that it may be a member of her HOA citing that my car is illegally parked in her driveway (my mom's HOA does not let its residents park in their driveways). Therefore, my thought was that this visit may involve me, so I took it upon myself to address him.
Instead, it was a friend of hers named Peter who had made plans to go riding with her "first thing in the morning." I wasn't sure what that mean, even though she had told us that she owns horses, but again, working on two hours sleep. The guy was polite, but it appeared as though he left angry. He said, "tell her to forget it," which I didn't know if that was because it appeared as though she had forgotten about him, or if he didn't want to inconvenience her since she had other company. Either way, I wrote a note that he stopped by and went back to bed.
It wasn't until about 9:30 that I heard her daughter playing in her game room. The mission that morning was to finish inflating her bounce house, so our hostess had purchased a hand pump that could work. I came into the room and greeted them both. She said she was going to start coffee as soon as she got this thing inflated, and I offered to help. She told me how to turn on the coffee maker, but I don't drink coffee, so I offered to help inflate the bounce house. She greatly appreciated that since she wasn't sure how to use it either (it was brand new).
The design of this thing was not very useful at all. The pump wasn't very long, so once it got started, it was like small breaths of air into the bounce house. And you had to pump it yourself, which to me meant that I would have a bicep muscle before Shaylee would have a bounce house. The other problem with the design is that after three or four solid blasts, the connector would fall off. I put it in place with electrical tape, but then my arms were getting too much of a workout for only four hours sleep. Granted, we could've waken Jeordie and put her to work on it but that wasn't the most logical option at 10:30AM either.
In middle school, I played the trombone. In high school, I continued playing. So, although I had zero passion for it, I had over five years of playing trombone, so today's result of that is a better-than-average blowing capacity. Therefore, it made more sense to me to blow than to pump. It only took about 20 minutes to get the thing inflated (after realizing that my previous hour had been spent in a futile effort). Little Shaylee had her bounce house, so we took it downstairs where she was able to wake up Jeordie about 20 minutes later.
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| It's hard to have bad times with good friends |
Our day began slowly, Chad got up shortly after Jeordie. I think Jeordie had told Chad that we were leaving sooner than she realized, but at least we got to chat for a full hour before we started getting ready to go to the water park. It was a communal water park, complete with a couple water slides (like the kinda at public water parks), which was the main draw in the first place.
Honestly, it has been about 15 years since I've been fully submerged in water. I bought a swimsuit about 7 years ago for hot tubs, and I packed that swimsuit to Flagstaff a few weeks prior but I never used it there. Luckily though, I knew exactly where it was! And it was clean. So, it finally got its intended use.
After a few more standard delays, we got to the water park at 2PM and we had to be on the road by 3PM. It's unfortunate, but at the same time, it was about 110 degrees outside, so a full hour in the sun is probably enough. We left the house as quickly as possible to our schedule, and we got Chad to work one minute after his actual start time (sorry, Chad!). Then, Jeordie and I had an early dinner at our favorite restaurant (Pita Jungle) for a nice conversation, which ran into my time for church, but I just went to a later service on campus, and it worked out fine.
We originally had hopes to going to see "Inception" at 9:30, but the day had taken its toll on us by that point. We called it an early night, and everyone slept through the morning. I know I slept about 9 hours, and then I took another 2-hour wake break this afternoon. Ideally, we will be able to watch the movie tonight. And this time, we will be able to stay awake for it. If we had gone last night, I imagined the ushers may have had to wake us after the movie ended.
