Although I am too lazy and tired to write what I really want to write, I thought I'd post something anyway. So instead of hearing about my fabulous classes, the soccer tournament I reffed, the soccer game I just came from where the parents scared the beejeezus out of me, or my 4th of July trip out East, you just get a few sentences to know I'm alive.
Really, the fact that I am still functioning on some level surprises me. These breathing issues are really taking a toll on me, and I keep getting tired. Also, the stupid meds make me feel all hopped up and shaky. I know that I should just be happy that I can breathe without gasping, but I'd like to be able to do that and not shake and sleep and not feel all foggy. I guess you take what you can get, though.
In other news, I have mailed my friends' engagement party invites. The date for the party is now set in stone! Yay! Now I just have to get the rest of it together! I know I'm bringing the main dish, Joe is bringing the drinks, and Linnea is bringing dessert. Andrew, bless his heart, can't make it to the party because he has rehearsal for a play (up in Alexandria) but is coming to help me clean up afterwards.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Crokinole World Championship! And GHOSTS!
So (quite) a few weeks ago my brother, my boyfriend, and a co-worker of my boyfriend packed up the car and drove from the lovely Midwest to exciting Tavistock, Ontario. "Why?" you might be asking. "Where's Tavistock?" is another good question. I'm going to pretend I didn't hear the person that just said, "Who cares?"
We travelled the many, many hours to Tavistock for the Crokinole World Championship. And it was an adventure!
First of all, crossing the border at Sarnia was interesting. As we crossed the border, the Canadian folk ask what us American folk were planning on doing in their fair country. We told them we were visiting friends (true). They wanted to know where, how we met these friends, where we would be sleeping with these friends, and did we really go to McGill? I don't think the woman cared for us much.
Naturally staying with my college roommate's family was delightful, as usual. They stuffed us full of amazing food and told many fascinating stories. They are such nice, generous people. I'm surprised they keep putting up with us!
The Crokinole tournament in Tavistock was an all day thing. It was like a celebrity where's Waldo though, and we all got really excited every time we saw somebody from the Crokinole documentary. Oh look! There's Willard who makes the crokinole boards! There's the guy that lets the guy from the village come out to his house to catch snakes! There's the people that play with cues! It was pretty funny to talk to people, and since the name tags say where you're from (apparently I'm from Madison, WI and Max is from Rosemount, Michigan), lots of people approached us. There was a couple from Ireland, a guy from Italy, and another guy from England. The guy from Ireland was really intense and kept calling over the referees, which was kind of funny. And I actually got to see Brian Cook play and see other people play with cues. Joe, Max, and Jake all played in the recreational division and came out right about in the middle.
Also in Tavistock that day were the garage sales. Some of these garage sales were downright hilarious with nothing but Babysitter's Club books and Married with Children DVDS, or tires, a broken leaf blower, and a woman watching it all from her rocker. Some of the garage sales were pretty good though, especially the one in the United Church parking lot. I got a really pretty embroidered hand towel for my mother, and Max got a set of dishes for 5$. The thing about the dishes is, we bought them in Canada, brought them back to the states, and in August we'll bring them back to Canada so he can have them in his apartment. It's not the best thought out plan, but whatever. We also got a free crokinole board at the church garage sale. It's in pretty bad shape, but we think we can fix it up and take it to the cabin for some outdoor crokinole fun.
In typical Lucky Max fashion, he spent 5$ on raffle tickets at the tournament and won a brand new 225$ crokinole board. He's pretty excited, and we played on it the other day. We're spreading the word of crokinole to college age kids in MN, and Max will be taking his board back to Kingston in August. We also bought an "experienced" board for our father, which he seems to like.
If the adventure up to Ontario was uneventful, the trip back was quite the opposite. We planned on heading back an afternoon earlier than originally planned and camping out somewhere along the way. It was rainy though, and my cough was acting up, so we stopped in Sarnia to look for a cheap hotel instead. We ended up staying in the best Motel 8 ever. The guy in the lobby was awesome and there was a vhs in the room and they had videos at the front desk. It was just crazy and funny at the same time.
The next day we completed the drive back. We saw some signs for the Busy Bee Flea Mall, and we tried to find it, but we were terribly unsuccessful. We ended up in Lawton, MI where we saw a really cool old building with a sign saying it was an art gallery and gift shop. I thought, "Cool! Local artists and original art!"
We pulled over, but a lot of the parking was for Marines only, soldiers only, etc. Jake thought it was a joke, but Joe and I convinced him that it was very serious and we better find a place to park without some of these signs. So we did. Then we went to the "art gallery". It was clear it was under construction, so we tried to walk right by and circle back to the car. No luck, though. One of the guys working with a saw inside saw us and called us in. He wanted to give us a tour of the historic building. Turns out it used to be the city hall and court house back in the 1800's. There was a secret room, they told us about the documents they found, and told us a little bit about past use. Then he took us up to the gallery so we could look down, and that was pretty awesome. But this is where the ghost stories started. It was interesting, don't get me wrong, but I was wondering how long it was going to take to tell all these stories. Then he started talking about how he had the ghost experts from Kalamazoo in and how they confirmed the place was haunted and he had pictures. Then he asked if we wanted to see the pictures.
So what were we going to say? No, sir with a saw, we don't want to see your stupid ghost pictures? So we said of course!, let's see the pictures of the ghosts. Here's where he told us that we had to look at the pictures on his phone in the light first and then go into the "dark room" to see the ghosts actually in the pictures. Here I started panicking a little bit, thinking no way am I going to die in the "dark room" of the old city hall of middle of nowhere Michigan. But it turned out the "dark room" was the bathroom that didn't even have a doorknob and had a hole in the door that let in some light. That made me feel a little better, but then he told everyone he was taking us to see the ghost pictures, and I though for sure these other men were going to jump out and scare the crap out of us. That didn't happen either, though, and it turns out the guy was very sincere. Anyway, totally interesting, really weird, and a little crazy. While we never made it to the Busy Bee Flea Mall, it was totally worth the stop, and the people of Lawton, MI were very nice.
We travelled the many, many hours to Tavistock for the Crokinole World Championship. And it was an adventure!
First of all, crossing the border at Sarnia was interesting. As we crossed the border, the Canadian folk ask what us American folk were planning on doing in their fair country. We told them we were visiting friends (true). They wanted to know where, how we met these friends, where we would be sleeping with these friends, and did we really go to McGill? I don't think the woman cared for us much.
Naturally staying with my college roommate's family was delightful, as usual. They stuffed us full of amazing food and told many fascinating stories. They are such nice, generous people. I'm surprised they keep putting up with us!
The Crokinole tournament in Tavistock was an all day thing. It was like a celebrity where's Waldo though, and we all got really excited every time we saw somebody from the Crokinole documentary. Oh look! There's Willard who makes the crokinole boards! There's the guy that lets the guy from the village come out to his house to catch snakes! There's the people that play with cues! It was pretty funny to talk to people, and since the name tags say where you're from (apparently I'm from Madison, WI and Max is from Rosemount, Michigan), lots of people approached us. There was a couple from Ireland, a guy from Italy, and another guy from England. The guy from Ireland was really intense and kept calling over the referees, which was kind of funny. And I actually got to see Brian Cook play and see other people play with cues. Joe, Max, and Jake all played in the recreational division and came out right about in the middle.
Also in Tavistock that day were the garage sales. Some of these garage sales were downright hilarious with nothing but Babysitter's Club books and Married with Children DVDS, or tires, a broken leaf blower, and a woman watching it all from her rocker. Some of the garage sales were pretty good though, especially the one in the United Church parking lot. I got a really pretty embroidered hand towel for my mother, and Max got a set of dishes for 5$. The thing about the dishes is, we bought them in Canada, brought them back to the states, and in August we'll bring them back to Canada so he can have them in his apartment. It's not the best thought out plan, but whatever. We also got a free crokinole board at the church garage sale. It's in pretty bad shape, but we think we can fix it up and take it to the cabin for some outdoor crokinole fun.
In typical Lucky Max fashion, he spent 5$ on raffle tickets at the tournament and won a brand new 225$ crokinole board. He's pretty excited, and we played on it the other day. We're spreading the word of crokinole to college age kids in MN, and Max will be taking his board back to Kingston in August. We also bought an "experienced" board for our father, which he seems to like.
If the adventure up to Ontario was uneventful, the trip back was quite the opposite. We planned on heading back an afternoon earlier than originally planned and camping out somewhere along the way. It was rainy though, and my cough was acting up, so we stopped in Sarnia to look for a cheap hotel instead. We ended up staying in the best Motel 8 ever. The guy in the lobby was awesome and there was a vhs in the room and they had videos at the front desk. It was just crazy and funny at the same time.
The next day we completed the drive back. We saw some signs for the Busy Bee Flea Mall, and we tried to find it, but we were terribly unsuccessful. We ended up in Lawton, MI where we saw a really cool old building with a sign saying it was an art gallery and gift shop. I thought, "Cool! Local artists and original art!"
We pulled over, but a lot of the parking was for Marines only, soldiers only, etc. Jake thought it was a joke, but Joe and I convinced him that it was very serious and we better find a place to park without some of these signs. So we did. Then we went to the "art gallery". It was clear it was under construction, so we tried to walk right by and circle back to the car. No luck, though. One of the guys working with a saw inside saw us and called us in. He wanted to give us a tour of the historic building. Turns out it used to be the city hall and court house back in the 1800's. There was a secret room, they told us about the documents they found, and told us a little bit about past use. Then he took us up to the gallery so we could look down, and that was pretty awesome. But this is where the ghost stories started. It was interesting, don't get me wrong, but I was wondering how long it was going to take to tell all these stories. Then he started talking about how he had the ghost experts from Kalamazoo in and how they confirmed the place was haunted and he had pictures. Then he asked if we wanted to see the pictures.
So what were we going to say? No, sir with a saw, we don't want to see your stupid ghost pictures? So we said of course!, let's see the pictures of the ghosts. Here's where he told us that we had to look at the pictures on his phone in the light first and then go into the "dark room" to see the ghosts actually in the pictures. Here I started panicking a little bit, thinking no way am I going to die in the "dark room" of the old city hall of middle of nowhere Michigan. But it turned out the "dark room" was the bathroom that didn't even have a doorknob and had a hole in the door that let in some light. That made me feel a little better, but then he told everyone he was taking us to see the ghost pictures, and I though for sure these other men were going to jump out and scare the crap out of us. That didn't happen either, though, and it turns out the guy was very sincere. Anyway, totally interesting, really weird, and a little crazy. While we never made it to the Busy Bee Flea Mall, it was totally worth the stop, and the people of Lawton, MI were very nice.
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