i'm cultured

   My sister and mom went to New York City for some school-related trip probably five or six years ago while I stayed at home with my dad and pitied my life. Yes I was invited to join but at the time of the invitation, it wasn’t “cool” to do fundraisers with kids three years younger than me along with their mothers. I regretted my decision because, as a rule of sibling order, the older sibling is always supposed to do things before the younger. Duh. So I was mainly upset that my sister would come back with these tales of the city and how cool it was and how cultured she was and I’d tell her about how I drove to the gas station and bought a corn dog while she was off traveling the world.

   Well five years down the road, I finally got the chance to travel to the Big Apple! This post explains the best part of the trip as well as the reason for the trip, but this post is simply an overall look at my big city experience.

   The first thing I noticed was what everyone said would be the first thing I’d notice: the smell. The heat of the day mixed with God knows what on the sidewalk created the oddest stench. To me it was sweet, kind of like when fruit rots and sits in your garbage can for a little too long. The second smell I recognized reminded me of the days of working at a gas station back home in high school. One of the chores was to empty the two cans next to the front door and they always were filled to the brim with empty soda cups containing a few inches worth of chew spit. Not familiar with that smell? Then you’re obviously not from a small town in Montana. I could identify that one anywhere. So the sweetness mixed with some old, warm chew spit – that’s what we’ve got so far. The last “flavor” I picked out was poop. Just hints of it here or there, when the breeze would shift or you’d walk by a particularly grungy alleyway…you’d smell it. Makes you just want to move to a big city, eh?

   Next thing I noticed was the amount of garbage. The first night, Garrett and I were walking back to our hotel when we turned down a street with sidewalks that were literally lined with full black trash bags. It felt like we were walking down a hallway because the bags went at least up to my hips. Now that smelled bad. We determined it must be garbage night or something and since there are so many people that live in each building, there would be hundreds of garbage cans and that would just be ridiculous. But the next day we happened to walk down that street again and it was the same thing! Just a wall of garbage lining the entire side of the block. I was appalled! How could one side of one block create that much waste?! Sickening. It was the same thing every night. I was thisclose to getting some poster board and a stick to start picketing the street and the wasters that inhabited it.

   Then there were the homeless people. Not as many as I had anticipated but enough to make me a little uneasy. The first day we were there, we walked to a pizza joint and snatched a window seat so we could see Times Square and people watch. Well less than five minutes later, an older man in a wheelchair (obviously homeless) wheeled by. He was dirty and seemed to be having a hard time staying in his chair while juggling his iced coffee. As he was attempting to cross the street, he completely slipped out of the wheelchair and fell face forward onto the sidewalk with the chair still strapped to him and on top of him. He somehow managed to not spill his coffee, though. Some guy stopped (I was amazed) and helped the man partially back into his chair and wheeled him back onto the sidewalk. The man seemed to refuse to stay in the chair and basically slid out of his strapping and onto the cement in an extremely awkward position. Needless to say, I could not stop watching. A little crowd gathered and tried to heave him back into his wheelchair but the man started to yell and flail his arms. He must have smelled pretty gross because the people weren’t willing to get more than a foot close to him and I saw a couple people gag and walk away. But the original helper guy stayed until the end, coaxing the man back into the chair. The homeless man apparently wanted nothing to do with anyone so he just laid there, taking sips of his drink now and then. Then (shield your eyes) the man seemed to have peed himself due to the puddle that began to surround him, reached behind himself to pull down his pants, did a “number two” on the sidewalk, rolled away a few inches, then resumed sipping his iced drink. Most people left, some running, at that point. The cops came and some guy with a big water jug and sprayer showed up shortly after. Basically I didn’t finish my pizza. And I was kind of scared.

   The number of sirens you would hear every day was simply amazing. Probably an ambulance every hour of the day tried to navigate the busy one-way streets without any help from the fellow drivers or pedestrians. Seriously, no one would move! Taxis didn’t even scoot over. People crossed the street right in front of the ambulances or fire trucks as if they weren’t anything special. It blew my mind! An ambulance would be stuck in one spot for minutes at a time just because no one would get out of their way! I feel bad for the dying person they were trying to reach.

   As for my overall experience in NYC, it was everything I’d hoped. I got to see all of the traditional tourist traps and visited places I’d only ever seen in movies. It was awesome! And I still didn’t get to do everything, that would take weeks! There’s definitely no where like New York.

   What have I discovered about myself from this trip? I’m not meant to live in the city. Country girl, represent.

 

you know you want it

   If you’re anything like the last eight people I’ve talked to on the phone, you’re just dying to know the story of my…ENGAGEMENT!

   That’s right, this little lady is now sporting a lovely diamond on the ol’ ring finger.

   My boyfriend fiancé and I just returned from a fantastic weeklong trip in New York City. It was technically my Christmas present (my very elaborate and over-the-top Christmas present.) Everyone has been asking if I knew I was going to be proposed to on the trip – the answer is no. I had dreamt about it, yes. I had my little fantasies and hopes but I knew it wasn’t going to happen on this trip because Garrett hadn’t talked to my parents. I knew that for a fact. I also knew he wouldn’t ask me before talking to them so I had accepted the fact that it was a no-go.

   On day two of our trip, we remembered that the Empire State Building was in New York! So we hightailed it the seventy billion blocks that afternoon to ascend. But it was hot and there was a line so we mutually agreed to come back later.

   After spending the day touring Liberty Island, Battery Park, and bits of Wall Street, we found ourselves back at the base of the Empire State Building. We He bought some tickets and we waited only about fifteen minutes to get to the observatory on floor 86. There were SO many people up there (if you ask Garrett, he’ll say about 200 people which may be a little bit of an exaggeration…) but quite a few nonetheless. We walked around all four sides, me forcing him to take numerous pictures of us smiling with NYC in the background.

   I noticed he started to act differently after a few minutes of being up there. I’d point at something in the distance and say, “Hey look! It’s that little café by our hotel!” and he’d distractedly smile while looking in the complete opposite direction of my finger and say “yeah!” unenthusiastically. I thought maybe he was actually deathly afraid of heights or maybe was in desperate need of a bathroom but never in a million years did I think he was really having an internal anxiety attack as he was planning his proposal strategy.

   We planned to stay and watch the sun set so we slowly made our way to a good viewpoint against the guard rails. I was up against it and Garrett had an arm on both sides of me as he stood behind me. The sun actually set twice: once behind the thick layer of smog, reappeared for a moment, then set again behind the actual horizon. Ha! We’ve nicknamed it “New York City, where the sun sets twice”.

   Right as the last little sliver of glowing orange light disappeared, I felt Garrett tugging on my hip to turn around. I resisted because I figured he was just trying to get me to go in order to beat the crowd down. He tugged again a little harder and I finally turned around only to realize what was about to happen. I knew right away and my stomach did about 43 flips and my heartbeat increased dramatically. My hands flew up to my face and I just stood there, eyes wide. He pulled a little baggie out of his pocket and got down on his knee, smiling all the while. He reached for my hand, proposed with a brief but perfect speech, waited for me to squeal “YES!”, then slipped it on with ease.

IT WAS PERFECT!

   How many people can say they’ve been proposed to at sunset on top of the Empire State Building? Huh? Not many? That’s what I thought.

   People started to cheer and whistle, clap and say “No way! Is this seriously happening?!” I was doing all those things as well, minus the whistling. (That’d be a little weird.) We headed toward the elevator to descend and I could not stop shaking, smiling, and hugging him. People were congratulating us and saying “God bless!”, it was such a cool moment.

   As we were standing in line for the elevator, I remembered about the whole asking-parents thing and questioned Garrett if he had. Apparently the Monday before we left for our trip, (the day I thought he had spent inside the car dealership to get his financing figured out for his new truck), he had actually woken up at 3:00am, driven the four hours to our hometown, asked my parents for my hand, had breakfast at his dad’s house, visited his mom at work, drove back to his house here, and ALL BEFORE I GOT OFF WORK.

What a sneaky little turd.

   So that is the story of my fairy tale proposal! I can’t wait to start this next chapter in my life with the greatest man in the world.

P.S. In case you missed the story of how we got started...

odd traditions

   Along with my family’s other strange and pointless traditions, there is one that is my personal favorite.

   I have to admit that one of the aspects about buying my first car that I was most excited about was that I got to pick out a name. Yes, for my car. In my lifetime, my family has had eight vehicles that I specifically remember. Each car or truck was given a very unique and thoughtful name when adopted into our family.

   First, there was Lucky. I was too young to ponder why Lucky was named, but probably because my parents got a good deal. Lucky was a maroon-ish Toyota 4Runner that toted us everywhere as kids. I distinctly remember the fabric on the seats and the little fluffy seatbelt covers my sister and I had in order to keep the belt from rubbing our necks raw. But one fateful day, “Lucky wasn’t so lucky anymore”. We were at a family friend’s pool party in SLC and some kid rammed into poor Lucky while she was innocently parked by the sidewalk because he was changing his radio station or whatever. THANKS A LOT! That was a mess. I just remember being so upset because “Lucky had died” and also my old fashioned glass Coca Cola bottle had broken during the crash. Jerk.

   After Lucky came Gracie, a dark green Orvis Edition of the Jeep Grand Cherokee. Leather seats, sunroof, issues… Gracie came with us all the way up to Montana. I remember cresting Lost Horse Pass in the middle of the night in November of 2001 as our family caravanned our way across the snowy states. My sister and I were mesmerized by the firework effect the snowflakes had from Gracie’s headlights as we drove through the night. Finally, after at least 4 years of a two hour commute for work, my dad just couldn’t fathom spending any more money to fix Gracie. We presumed she was on her last leg and had to sell her. Low and behold, the buyer happened to be a mechanic and fixed her right up! Now she’s still driving around town, probably with 200,000+ miles on her, and saying “that’s right! And you gave up on me!” whenever we pass each other on the road. Sorry Gracie…you had a lot of baggage.

   After Gracie there was Bubbles, aptly named because her color was called champagne. Another Toyota 4Runner but fairly new. We got Bubbles around about the same time I started driving so, unlike my sister, Bubbles wasn’t a big part of my life. I remember that car had a hard time making it down our washboard-y dirt roads without scooting around like a Mexican Jumping Bean. Those handles by the windows certainly came in handy. Bubbles was around for a few years until one unfortunate, icy day when my sister and mom slid off of a hill and poor Bubbles was totaled. Luckily, no one was hurt! Well, except for Bubbles…now she’s a giant smooshed block.

   Now my mom drives Rhonda the Bird-Eating Honda. A giant Honda Avalanche that doubles as her work vehicle. Yes, Rhonda eats birds. We can’t figure out why, either. She must be really stealthy because birds don’t know what’s coming until Rhonda’s directly overhead.

   When we had Lucky, my dad drove Blackie – an old black Toyota Tacoma with an extended cab. Needless to say, my sister and I quickly outgrew the backseat of Blackie due to our abnormally long limbs so we didn’t spend much time in that truck. We did take him camping a lot and the dogs would ride along once in a while, but my memories of Blackie are few and far between.

   After Blackie came Thunder for my dad. Another Toyota! How strange. This one was “Thunder Grey” and had suicide doors so my sibling and I were actually able to ride along. My dad still drives Thunder today because, unlike my mom, he seems to be slightly more fortunate in the accident section.

   When we moved to Montana, my parents only had Gracie. That became an issue because my sister and I had to ride the bus to school but the closest bus stop was about a mile away. To solve the problem, we bought Monte – a very old, wood-paneled Jeep Wagoneer. Monte was a beast. He could make it up any snowy hill and delivery us safely to our destination. He wasn’t very reliable outside of our neighborhood, though, so we rarely took him to town. His ceiling was drooping to the point that it grazed my dad’s head, his seats were fraying, families of mice often made brief homes in his undercarriage, he had a hard time playing the radio, and one of the doors didn’t always shut. But! He took us to the bus stop and that’s all that mattered. I learned to drive in Monte, cruising around our seven acres on a path my dad had created. After my sister and I both earned our licenses, Monte was banished to the edge of the property by the burn barrels and slash piles. One day we had him towed away and I’m fairly certain a piece of my heart died.

   I can’t forget Shooter! Shooter was a bonus car for my mom to drive for only a short length of time when she stopped commuting. She was a purple Mitsubishi Expo with three rows of seats and one of those seatbelt things that slides away when you open the door. It was such a fun car! I inherited it as my first vehicle and could tote my friends everywhere. I actually volunteered her for the Homecoming Week class pile-in and we fit 27 juniors! Which later I found out wasn’t the brightest idea because numerous things were broken in the process, but you live and you learn right? I had my first kiss in that car, got my first ticket in that car, broke curfew numerous times in that car, hit my first mailbox in that car…etc. I was beyond heartbroken the day her check engine light came on after school and she started spewing yellow liquids out of the hood. Shooter was a goner.

   Then I made my first grown-up financial decision and took out a loan for a 2001 black Hyundai Santa Fe my junior year of high school. I was a whole other level of excited. After five years of payments, the giddiness has worn off a stitch but I still love my Black Pearl; Pearl for short. She’s been with me every year that I have to make the horrific drive back and forth from college to home, always getting me there in one piece. I have a weird tradition of patting the dashboard and saying “thanks, Pearl!” whenever I get to my destination when the driving conditions were deathly. These days Pearl’s looking a little worse for wear unfortunately. Both of her visors are broken, the windshield is a disaster, she smells funny, she’s dirty, she’s dented, she’s scratched – she’s in desperate need of some TLC. But I’m a poor college student whose last priority is getting a carwash and a new windshield, so sue me! Hopefully she’ll keep trucking along and someday soon I’ll be able to buy her something nice. Stay with me, Pearl, stay with me!

   And now a new member has been inducted into the family – a blue Hyundai Tucson for the sister. She made her first grown-up financial decision and is now the proud payer-of-payments for the new rig. No name has surfaced for this youngin’ yet…any suggestions?