Temerity Jane

And now I’m over HERE

I bet, if you were looking for me, you’d be looking in Arizona right now, but that’s because you don’t pay attention when I talk. After a weekend of adventure, I an now laying on my parents’ couch in Pennsylvania, and there’s no diet soda, so I’m really not in a good mood about the whole thing.

Anyway, though, let me tell you about my weekend, because it’s way more interesting than anything that is going on here (my sister is sitting at the kitchen table, doing her taxes, saying things like “tell the Internet I itched my boob! No, don’t tell them that,” and not being decisive about it at all so guess what? I went with the boob thing).

Saturday morning, we got up relatively early (or at least, I did – Phil is always up early so Phil got up pretty normal) because we had a long day planned, but it was actually going to turn out to be way longer than we ever imagined. This is called heavy-handed foreshadowing.

I would have stayed in bed until right up until my first appointment of the day (hair at 12:30), but I had to make a t-shirt for Brinkley. I would tell you more about the t-shirt I made for Brinkley, but I unloaded all of the pictures from my camera onto my computer at home, and now I’m in PA with a MacBook, so I have to tell you, I’m feeling a little illustratively stifled. Anyway, I was making a t-shirt for Brinkley, with iron on letters, like you do, and one set of letters just refused to work. At all. Of course, they worked JUST ENOUGH TO RUIN THE ENTIRE T-SHIRT I HAD SPENT ALL MORNING ON, but I didn’t complain (yes I did). I didn’t whine (oh yes I did). Instead, we cut off the offending part of shirt and make Brinkley a belly shirt. Welcome to 1996, dog!

With that being done, all we had was places to be for the rest of the day. I got my hair done at 12:30 (Phil had a manicure). I got my make up done at 2 (Phil prepared a cooler with marrow bones for the dog). We had engagement pictures taken by Busy Bee Lauren at 4 in Mesa (I let Phil participate in that one).

For two people who really don’t like to have their picture taken and cannot smile on demand to save their lives, we did not end up having an absolutely miserable time getting the pictures done, which obviously is a testament to Lauren’s skill. We won’t have the pictures back for a few weeks, but we did get to keep a couple of pictures that had been used for effect in another picture, so feel free to tell us that we’re adorable, Internet.

The fish: The most flattering of all the animal faces.

While we were having our pictures done, a lovely couple named Jeremiah and his wife Jennifer, who like to read my blog together, which is both hysterical and awesome, and I forget where I’m going with this sentence, but anyway, they watched Brinkley for us for the pictures that Brinkley (and his t-shirt!) did not feature in. We asked to take them to dinner afterward, and they accepted, with Jeremiah saying that it was unlikely we were ever going to be in the East Valley again, seeing as how it is about an hour from our home. Little did he know! CHECK OUT THAT HAMFISTED FORESHADOWING.

Since we had the dog with us, we were kind of limited on where we could go, but fortunately, they know of a bar where Brinkley was totally welcome. Seriously. It is called the Monastery, and it’s like being in a backyard, right down to grilling your own food, which you pay for with your bank card and walk away without signing the slip. I mean, that’s what I did. I don’t know if you would want to take the same course of action.

We had a lovely dinner, and since I had a 7:30 am flight on Sunday, necessitating a 4am wake up, we called it a pretty early night and Phil and I headed back home, an HOUR AWAY, so that I could start packing. I always end up staying up all night the night before I travel anywhere, because everyone knows that packing a suitcase takes exactly as much time as you have. If you don’t have to be ready to go until 5am and you start packing at 10pm, it is going to take from 10pm to 5am and that’s just how packing goes.

So we ended up getting home for the night, finally around 9pm or so, I believe, and I screwed around for a while because, come on, I had ALL NIGHT TO PACK. Around 9:30 or so, I had settled down to check in to my flight and got to the part where I had to pay $23 GD dollars so they could toss my bag around like some kind of bag carnival ride, when I realized that I did not possess the tiny piece of plastic I needed to pay for said bag. AND OH YEAH, I DIDN’T REMEMBER SIGNING THE SLIP AT THE BAR AT ALL.

Phil, who had not been feeling well at all for the whole day and a couple of days leading up to that whole day, was… somewhat less than pleased with me, as we set out to go BACK to Mesa, and HOUR AWAY, AGAIN. And then an hour home. AGAIN.

Arriving home with the time closing in on midnight, I was somewhat less enthusiastic about packing for my trip. Deciding to test the theory that packing would take exactly as much time as I had, we both got in bed until the alarm went off at 4am. We had to leave at 5:30, and wouldn’t you know, the packing that usually takes me all night took exactly as much time as I had. Weird.

I spent both flights having an inner battle with myself, because the same shrieking child was on the plane from Phoenix to Chicago, and then Chicago to Scranton. He wasn’t crying. He was shrieking. You know, like kids do. And in my mind, I was at war, telling myself, “You know, his mother is probably pretty miserable, no one wants to be the cause of annoying a whole plane,” and also, “Well, she doesn’t LOOK that upset. If she’s upset, she should look more upset because I’M upset.” I totally get that keeping a kid quiet on a long plane ride is probably difficult, if not impossible. And that if it’s your kid, it’s probably very frustrating for you, or embarrassing, or upsetting, or whatever, to be the one with the screaming kid, and you certainly didn’t set out to upset the whole plane, and I should really have some sympathy. I really, truly told myself all of that over and over but in the end it didn’t matter how much I assured myself because OH MY GOD THAT KID SHRIEKED ACROSS THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES. I’m sorry, parents who have had the experience of holding a shrieking child in your lap. I really, truly tried to squash down my annoyance with sympathy but it DIDN’T WORK. I will willingly claim the title of Airborn Asshole if I need to.

Anyway, aside from having next to no sleep and leaving Phil in Arizona feeling quite unwell and the fact that my sister greeted me at the airport by bending over and waving her butt and saying, “Mom said I couldn’t moon you,” my travels were largely uneventful. I’ll be here in PA for about two weeks, which should be just enough time both for Phil to recover and not be such a whiny sick person and also for him to forget that I made him drive back and forth across Arizona a whole bunch of times.

Tomorrow, Internet? Dress shopping.