What a show!!!

Saturday was a day I'd been looking forward to. It was the day that my friends from Son of Rust got to open for one of the bands responsible for influencing their sound. They opened for the newly reformed Information Society.

Eldon unfortunately had to take a trip to the Garbage State on business and wasn't able to make it to the show, but since there's nothing worthy of taking pictures of in central New Jersey, (I know this because I lived in Old Bridge, NJ for a year) he told me to take his new camera to the show and take lots of pictures for him. And picture taking I did.

Geoff picked me up and we headed down to the show at the Crystal Ballroom around 7:30. The show wasn't scheduled to start till 9, so we met up with the usual SoR groupie crew at Ringlers downstairs. All the usual suspects were there: Justin and Ben (duh!) Melissa, Jason and Bekka, Allison, Tad, Geoff and myself, and then some others made it out for the occasion as well. Melissa being in town from Thailand, Chad drove up from Eugene, and even Erin managed to make it out. While on stage, Justin gave a shout out to his parents who also made it out to the show, and later I found that Ben and Michael's parents had also come. That's kinda neat.

The SoR boys put on probably their best performance to date. I think they were so charged from getting such an experience, and from probably the largest crowd they've played to since the Iris/Cause+Effect show. (It's debatable which crowd was bigger at the actual time that SoR was on stage.)



InSoc was also fantastic. It had been quite some time since I'd heard their music, but it turns out I recognized a lot more songs than I thought. I managed to really put the new camera to the test there. It definately takes much better low light pics than his other one did. The hardest part was having the shutter open so long, any movement at all would cause blur. Even if the guys on stage stood still, the crazy dancing crowd + the Crystal Ballroom's wonderfully bouncy floor made it extremely difficult to have no blur at all.

It was a great show, and I got to hang with fun people! Good times, good times. I'll post more pictures from the show later... Just wanted to get a couple out there so my readers didn't think I'd fallen into a hole!

A whole year...

Wednesday was officially 1 year that Eldon and I have been together. It really doesn't seem that long. I'm very happy though. He's truly wonderful and I'm so glad to have him in my life. He is my rock, the balance of logic to my often irrational emotions. Love you babe!

Anyway... enough mush...on to the stories!

************The Quest for a Digital Camera**************

Eldon's digital camera died on him when he was in NY, so I had it in my head that for our anniversary I was going to replace it for him. Buying electronics for Eldon is no easy feat, because he is EXTREMELY picky about his gadgets, and he's really tough to buy for because if he wants something, he usually goes out and buys it immediately.

A week before, we were in a CompUsa looking at something else he needed, and I wandered over to the cameras and sorta asked him what he was looking at, which got him to open up to what he'd been researching so I knew where to start. He showed me the camera he wanted. I was all set to buy that one for him the day before our anniversary, and as I'm ON THE WAY to go buy it for him, he sends me a text message telling me that he'd been doing research on digital cameras and decided he wanted a different one instead. He gave me the model number and told me where he saw it for how much! (He absolutely had no idea I was on my way to go buy one when he sent me the message, so I was really glad he did that.)

I stopped into Video Only on my way to the other store he had mentioned, just to compare prices, and the second I walked in, the guy sitting at the desk at the front of the store gives me one of those squinty-eyed looks of half recognition. I tilted my head in response, recognizing him as well. It turned out he was my old boss, Donovan, from like 7 years ago when we both worked at a now defunct (except in Canada) electronics store called Future Shop. Small World!

I told him what I wanted and told him what the other store was offering, and he said, "I'll do better! I'll give you a free 1gb card for the camera instead of that other deal, and knock off some money on the 2 year service plan as well." SOLD! I was really happy. I got a smoking deal on exactly the camera Eldon wanted, and I managed to get it BEFORE he bought it for himself! Go Me!

Of course, this wouldn't be a ME story if it didn't have a catch....

Donovan rang me up, and then realized he didn't actually have a camera in the store. However, the Jantzen Beach store had one in stock. I was in Beaverton, and it was 5pm. I didn't really want to drive in that kind of traffic, but I needed to get the camera that day, so I made the drive in rush hour traffic to go pick up the camera.

I walked in and the guy behind the counter ALSO looked familliar. I worked with him about 7 years ago at Good Guys after Future Shop closed its doors in the US. How odd! So he gives me the camera, and I head back to Eldon's. I decided to present him with the camera right away rather than waiting for our official anniversary the next day. I pull the camera out of the bag...

and they gave me the wrong fucking camera!!!!!

Eldon was like, "Wow, that was really sweet of you to get me a digital camera, but that's not the one I was talking about getting." I wanted to beat my head on the coffee table. I showed him the reciept, which of course had the correct camera he wanted on it, and we hopped in the car and drove all the way back from Beaverton to Jantzen Beach.. AGAIN~!

I walked in and the guy at the counter asks, "How can I help you?"
My deadpan response was, "You can give me the camera I paid for. :)" as I plopped the camera they had given me on the counter. (The camera they gave me was about $200 less expensive than the one I paid for.)

Hooray for Morons! It all worked out, we got the camera Eldon wanted and he absolutely loves it. It's just so typical for things to be so much harder than they need to be when it comes to me. I'm surprised I'm not even more bitter and cynical than I am after this hellish month. I sincerely hope next month is better.
*****************************************************

So Eldon's gift to me was a fantastic steak dinner at Ringside. He'd been threatening to take me there for a while, but we'd just not gotten around to it. We had reservations at 7, but I picked him up from work at 5, so we had some time. I suggested we go have a drink or two at the very place we met...

East Chinatown Lounge.

We had also forgotten their phenominal happy hour prices. We were there during happy hour afterall, and during such time, their well drinks are a meager $2!

The bartender was really cool too. We told him that this was our anniversary and that we had met at this bar, and when he brought our 2nd drinks to our table, he said,

"This round's on me, Happy Anniversary."

Granted the drinks were cheap, but that was still really nice of him.

So then we went to Ringside. I'd never been there before, and it was really nice. We had a fantastic steak dinner.. mmm...mmm... goodness.

Even sitting in a fancy restaurant, I couldn't help but be dorky.

Good night though. It's been a great year, and I look forward to more!

When it rains, it POURS

In addition to the veritable shit-storm (thanks dad for that reference!) that happened with SHE (from my previous blog) who will henceforth now, and until I forget about her entirely, be dubbed Psycho the Wonder Bitch, a whole bunch of other unbelieveable crap has happened to me in the last week.

I was trying to recover from what Psycho the Wonder Bitch did to me, while getting harrassed for a couple days, and she even sent Eldon an email trying to cause even more drama in my life. Luckily, Eldon trusts me enough to know that anything Psycho the Wonder Bitch has to say is total bs and he wouldn't believe it anyway.

I realized that my cell phone decided it no longer wanted to take pictures. On the crap scale, it's fairly low, but it was just another little annoyance that bothered me. Being completely displaced and living out of boxes is depressing, too.

I went to school on Friday at noon to take my math mid term. Got there with plenty of time to spare, and realized when I got there, that I was at the wrong campus! Apparently I can't read. There was a 6pm timeslot to take it, so I figured I would take it then, but I called my professor to ask if there were any other times I could take it, because taking it at 6 meant skipping out on graduating my final dog training class for the pet store.

I spoke to my professor and she told me that the campus had time on Saturday and I told her that would be great. So Wesley and I get in my car and start heading up to Vancouver to graduate the puppy class.

Sitting at a stop light, the light turns green, the guy in front of me hesitates, so I wait... Unfortunately, the guy behind me didn't. He rear-ended me going about 30 mph!!!!

Wesley, who was in the backseat was tossed forward, and I was jostled a bit, but I was wearing my seat belt, so I was more concerned with Wesley. After the crap I've dealt with in the last week, I didn't even have the energy to be mad. I got out of the car and walked up to the guy and the very first words out of my mouth were: "Tell me you have insurance."

He did. I called the Police, and apparently in Oregon the coffee and doughnuts are so damn good that they can't be bothered to come to the scene of an accident unless there is need for a tow-truck or ambulance! How stupid is that?

I guess they need to have the time to work on the REAL crimes.

So while taking down his information, he calls up what I can only assume is his buddy and speaks completely in Spanish. Not 2 minutes later, we're still exchanging information, and three mexican guys all in white wife beaters come walking up and tell me that they're the guy who rear-ended me's friends. One guy also says that he owns a body shop and would I be willing to get my car fixed at his shop instead of going to the insurance company.

That was a resounding "No Thanks." My back was already hurting at this point, but I was more concerned about Wesley, so I drove frantically to my clinic to get him checked out. They told me, "He's gonna stay here and get checked out and you need to leave right now and get yourself checked out."

So I got to spend 2 hours getting x-rays for them to tell me that there's no bone damage at least and I'll probably just be sore for a few days, here's some ibuprophen, enjoy. Wesley too got x-rays and he was fine as well, but the whole thing was just icing on the cake of my ridiculous week.

I was all prepared to take the mid term Saturday morning, but apparently my professor found out she had no way to get the test to the testing center because they don't allow you to email it, so I don't get to take it now. Fan-friggin-tastic.

So instead of taking my math mid-term, I went to the DMV (always a pleasure) and filled out an accident report. I'm still incredibly sore from the neck to my tailbone.

Just when I start thinking that if it weren't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any at all.. I have to stop and remind myself that it hasn't been all bad.

****************************************************************

Thursday night 7/13: Jesse came in from NY to visit me. Jesse is my closest friend. He and I have a very strange relationship where if you listened to us banter, half the time you'd think we were brother and sister, and the other half you'd think we were married! After I picked him up from the airport, we met up with Geoff and Jason and went bar-hopping.

We started at Rock Bottom, then graduated to Kell's, where Jason drew me this lovely picture of "Jabba the Penis". (Go-go drunken doodling!)

We then went to Dante's and it was completely dead. Everyone was curious about the upstairs strip club and the boys went up the stairs while I was taking this picture.

No sooner had I clicked the picture and started up the stairs, the boys come running down practically screaming at how scary it was!

So, we had to check out another dive strip club. Cabaret is on the other side of the street, and it just looked so seedy we had to check it out. (Again with drunken logic). It was pretty seedy, but surprisingly enough the girls weren't that bad looking. The most noteable thing that happened though was that Geoff got double charged... for a NEAR BEER!

Walking back to our respective rides,

Geoff decided to pray to never be double charged for non-alcoholic drinks,

and Jason had to pee!

It was a fun night.

************************************************
Friday 7/14: Jesse and I tried to take Wesley to the Berlin Inn for some lunch, but apparently they were closed. Instead we ended up going to a pizza joint with a nice outdoor area on Hawthorne.

We decided to go out to Dixie's Tavern that night. They were having a Red Hot Chili Peppers give away that included airfare, hotel, and tickets to their show in Oakland, CA. Not that either one of us are huge fans or anything, but Dixies is always a fun place to go. We took a cab down because we wanted to not have to worry about which one of us would have to watch what we intook to be able to drive home.

For some strange reason, I've been wanting chicken wings. I hadn't found a place that had them just the way I wanted them, and the two times prior that I'd ordered them somewhere I'd been disappointed. I finally got the chicken wings I'd been craving for weeks at Dixies! They have good wings there. So good in fact that Jesse and I tore into 24 of them between the two of us!




Geoff called me and said him and Jason were heading out as well and so they joined us shortly after. Dixies has the "Coyote Ugly" theme happen from time to time, where the girls dance on the bar. Well, of course if they allowed customers to do that, I absolutely HAD to dance on the bar! That was a lot of fun! Later that evening one of the waitresses ASKED me to go back up and dance again, hah! I think all total I was up there like 3 times. They even hosed us down with water once.


Aaron, Jennifer and Simon also showed up there by chance! Then Gustav from 94.7 announced the winner of the Red Hot Chili Peppers give away. Then he read off my name. I stood there completely stunned for a moment as Jesse and Geoff stared at me in as much shock as I was in. "No way!" I practically shouted while looking for where to go. The show is August 24th, so I'm now in the process of ensuring I can get the day off to go. I handed my phone to someone to take a picture of me with Gustav. The picture didn't turn out well, but that's what happens when you ask drunk people to take pictures with a camera phone that doesn't take very good low light pictures to begin with. :P

Geoff offered to take us home instead of us taking a cab, and when I got to the door, I realized I didn't have my keys... apparently I lost them in the cab we took on the way down to Dixies and they were turned in to the dispatcher and I couldn't get them until 2:30 pm Saturday 7/15 afternoon. So I had to make some noise to be let in....

Let's just say that Psycho the Wonder Bitch was not amused, and it was the start of one of the crappiest weeks I've had in a long time. That's all I have to say about that.

I also got to see Son of Rust play at the Fez on Thursday 7/20 and hang out with that crowd. (Justin, Ben, Melissa, Jason and Bekka, Tad, Allison and Geoff.) It was the first time I'd felt comfortable in nearly a week. I'd been feeling much like an abused dog, cowering anytime someone came near me. Nobody physically beat me down, but emotionally I really felt like I was. I felt the need to walk on eggshells after my displacement for fear of making people regret helping me. It was irrational and unnecessary, but I couldn't stop doing it. I've said I'm sorry more in the last week than I think I ever have in my life. I'm thinking that this last week was a lesson in humility for me. I definately learned it.

I have to say though. I have some incredibly wonderful friends who were there for me when my world got turned upside down, and I hope that sometime I can repay their generosity and kindness.

To Jesse: I'm sorry the last day of your visit sucked, and I was not fun to be around, but I couldn't have made it through that day without you. Your support, wilingness to witness and tolerate my emotional rollercoaster, and strength, (both physical and emotional) made that last day bareable. Thank you.

To Geoff: You seriously are one of the best, most selfless and generous people I know. I only hope that if you ever are in dire need of something that you call me, because I will be there. You are a fantastic friend. Thank you.

To Eldon: You made a sacrifice you really weren't ready for and I am so very grateful. You are a wonderful boyfriend. You keep me sane when I'm losing my mind, and you're always there to catch me when I fall. Thank you.

To Warren: You're an all around great person. You made the last week bearable with your always sunny disposition and humor. I appreciate your willingness to bear the burden placed on you and I will do my best to make it as little an inconvenience as possible. Thank you.

Some people practice random acts of kindness... others random acts of cruelty.

I always knew there were people in this world that do malicious things to fuck people over just for their own amusement, but I guess I just hoped I was a better judge of character so I would never have to associate with them.

I guess I was wrong. I completely misjudged someone. I thought they were a nice person and I THOUGHT we were friends. Apparently I only had one good purpose and when that purpose was served, I was LITERALLY kicked to the curb...

Those who were there with me when it happened know exactly what I'm talking about, so I don't see the need to go into details because I am a better person than SHE is.

I'm still reeling from the downright cruel act, staggering lack of common decency, and sheer immaturity in which the situation was handled from the other party. I could never have even fathomed doing that to somoene. I really do feel like I was stabbed in the back.


Thankfully, I do have some REAL friends and if it werent for them I never would have gotten through yesterday. I was sick to my stomach all day from the sheer stress and urgency that was placed on me, and it just kept on coming. Each time I thought I had a handle on it, she would do something else just plain rude to mess with me.

The thing that bothers me the most about all of this, is that I have no idea why it even happened. I asked, and got no response. I wasn't confrontational about it, I just wanted to know why. Instead she got her friends to come over to watch and laugh as my REAL friends and I scrambled to remedy the situation. I did nothing to warrant further harrassment from her, but it continued well into this morning with text messages and 3am voicemails of her and her friends laughing at me.

It reminded me why most of my friends are guys. Women are so much more vindictive when they want to hurt you.

More good news...

Yesterday I came home after work to find an envelope on the door...

It read:

Dear Amy XXXXXX:
Please accept this letter as formal legal notice to you by the owner of (the apartment complex)that your lease expires on 8/24/2006. This letter has been written and delivered to give you sufficent notice of our request for possession of your apartment on the 24th day of August, 2006 at 11:59 PM which is at least thirty (30) days from your reciept of this letter.

If possession is not returned to (apartment complex) on August 24th 2006 at 11:59 PM, your account will be turned over for eviction.

Sincerely,
XXXXXX XXXXX
Community Manager

No option to renew the lease? This was not good news. Now my roommate is still in Hawaii. So I called her up and left her a frantic message, and emailed her a copy of the letter. She calls me back and says she will figure out what's going on and call me back later. I get an email from her this morning, basically saying that because of this, she's decided that she's going to move in with her dad until she can afford to buy her own house... which means I have 30 days to find a new place to live!!!

Like I needed more stress! I just barely moved into this place and now I have to FIND a new place to live, repack everything, find another god damn truck or probably just fucking rent one this time, and perhaps get one of those remote controls from Click so I can pause the world and actually have TIME to move my shit to a new location!

Shoot me in the head... Please. How do you feel about moving again, Wesley?

Me too buddy, me too.

Exploitation...

Since Amy's been gone, all the dogs have been sleeping in my room. Shep and Cesar in their kennels and Paris and Wesley on my bed.

This is what I've been waking up to every morning. See the lump sandwich in the middle? That's me.

I mentioned before that I planned on exploiting the fact that my apartment complex has a fenced doggy area and that I intended on exploiting it.

Well Saturday that's what I did. I hosted week 1 of a 4 week training class there. I spent the time working with the dogs, so I didn't have much time to take pictures, but here's two of Shep's classmates after their session.

This is Emma and Zabu.

After I finished with them, Lee and Lucienne brought over their enormous and wonderful 10 month old Irish Wolfhound named Jamie. They wanted to work with him a bit before they take him to California and put him in the show ring for the first time with his breeder.

Before I worked with him, we let him and Paris run around and play a bit to burn off some of that energy. Nothing like a 150 lb puppy that's bouncy and playful!

I worked with them a bit on how to keep him standing in the show ring, how to stop after a run, and gave them some tips on how to curb his over-exhuberant lunging at people to greet them.

After, I took them back to my place and we talked out front for a bit. I took a couple pictures to relay the sheer size of this dog.

I really do love the Giant Breeds.

When I finished for the day, I went over to Eldon's and we had a quiet night of cuddling and watching a really long and drawn out movie called Primer. It was an indie film about some computer nerds who are "garage physists" and they accidentally make a time machine. It sounded like a great idea for a film, but in reality, it was over my head and not enough explanation of what exactly was going on to the point that it was pretty much a snooze fest. Which was fine, because I had excellent company. :)

Ride em' Cowgirl.. er something

Friday, I woke up fairly early, due to my body being used to getting up at the crack of dawn lately after little to no sleep the night before. Having 4 dogs in your room makes getting up early nearly a requirement. But they're so cute!


I did my usual go meet Eldon for lunch downtown. This time I decided to take the two most hyper dogs of the 4, in hopes of tiring them out to a manageable level. I took Paris and Shep.

While there, Paris showed Shep the ropes on how to get water downtown.

He caught on quickly.

I brought them back to the house, and they ate as a pack.

(Wesley doesn't like other dogs around when he eats. He's not food aggressive, but he gets upset when another dog is near his bowl, and won't eat, he'll just stand there guarding it, so I just feed him separately so he can eat in peace.)

I was invited to go out with one of Geoff and Aaron's friend's for her 21st birthday bash. I met Nicole at Aaron's party a few months ago, but that was the last time I saw her or really talked to her. I was really tired and wasn't sure if I wanted to go, but because she took the time to actually snail mail someone she hardly knew the directions to the bash, I figured I should go and try to get to know her better.

It was at a place called Duke's Country Bar and Grill. Now country bars aren't really my scene, as I'm not a big fan of country music and I don't line dance or anything remotely country, but it was still loads of fun. Eldon met us down there as well, even though he too was exhausted. Don't we look fantastic?

Notice that Eldon's drink has an entire Red Bull can in it.

There was some really bad dancing performed by Geoff and Aaron, poor Nicole sandwiched in the middle.

There was cowboy hats.

There was of course, an Eldon Moment...

and quite possibly the funniest part of the evening...
Getting Geoff on a Mechanical Bull!

(you absolutely have to click this picture to get a look at the facial expression.. priceless!)
I wish we would have gotten his landing.. when he plummetted off the bull he landed on the mat face down! Aaron was laughing so hard the picture came out blurry.

The birthday girl got up there too...

Doing the Miss America wave.

Aaron got up on the bull as well.

Crushed nuts anyone?
His landing was really funny too... I caught just the end of it, but he actually did a backwards somersalt and landed against the fence!

While I was waiting for my turn, the guy running the bull was hitting on me! So I get up there, and at first he's taking it easy on me...

Then he tilted the bull forward and bounced me up and down, rapidly...
But I held on....

and ended with a very silly "Ta Da!" landing!

We tried to get Eldon up there too, but he wasn't having it. :(

So instead, Geoff decided he would ride the bull his own way.

Um, Geoff.. that's not an udder!

That's a lot of dogs!

One of the coolest things about my new place, is that this complex is very dog friendly. They have posts all over the complex with poop bags and garbage cans to put them in, and they even have a fenced doggy play area!

I intend to exploit that fenced doggy area to the fullest, but we'll get to that later.

Last week, Amy tells me that her mom bought her a ticket to come see her.. in Hawaii. Then she tells me, "I'm leaving Monday." So I've been taking care of Wesley, Paris, and Cesar for the last few days by myself. (One of the reasons I took all 3 of them to the beach.) I had already agreed to be watching one of my students during that time, so I now have 4 dogs to watch at once. It's certainly not quiet! Hey, if I can do 3, I can do 4, right?

So I picked this guy up last night around 8pm and brought him back to the house.

He's a 5 month old black lab named Shep. What a sweet dog!

I didn't have a whole lot of time to spend with him last night, because I had to get prepared for work this morning, but when I got home today, I walked all four of the dogs down to the dog run area to play for a bit.

and play they did.

Walking them back, it was fun to watch people's expressions when they see this little 5'4 girl walking four 50-80lb dogs. I think 4's my limit though.

Cesar may be able to do 10 on leash, 40 without,

but I'm good with four.