Gig-O-Rama!

Ahhh, there’s nothing like a road trip… And there are few things in life that I enjoy more. What makes the ultimate road trip for me, however, is when it involves playing gigs along the way. Throw in a couple of great friends and a trip to my hometown and you can’t go wrong! BUT – when you throw in 5 shows in a little over 36 hours, things can start to get a bit dodgy…

I was born in the town of Yakima, Washington. I moved away to the Tri-Cities (Also affectionately known as the Dry-Shitties…) when I was 7. However, I’ve always considered myself more of a Yakima girl… Close to the mountains, closer to Seattle – just a little more my style…. SO – when I got the opportunity to play a few shows in Yakima, I was very excited. I haven’t played a show there since I was in high school and well, that was a while ago… And since that show was a lovely display of cheesy, high school jazz choir stuff, I was hoping to make this show a little more compelling.

I am currently playing bass with Carrie Clark. We have a great time playing together and have had many, crazy adventures together. We’ve crowded in a van with a couple of other bands to drive up and down the Coast. We’ve crowded in a Honda CRV to drive back and forth to Texas. We’ve crowded into numerous friends’ homes to sleep on their floors… We’ve been going on crazy, musical adventures for a few years now and we still seem to like each other! I guess if it ain’t broke… And it is because we have had so many fun and successful adventures together that I was completely willing to sign on for this current undertaking. However, it indeed had the making of some road trippin’ craziness.

Carrie got an invitation to play at the Yakima Folk Festival. We have a full band we regularly play with, but since this called for a more mellow approach, we decided to go as a duo. We have actually played many shows with just the two of us and it’s always a lot of fun. It’s cool to be able to present the music in different ways. Mixes things up a bit – no one gets bored… Anyway – we agreed to play the festival. As our very talented friend, Camille Bloom was also invited to play, we decided to drive down together. WOO – a carpoolin’ road trip!

What we didn’t realize was that we were going to end up playing multiple shows at the festival. When Carrie received the final line-up info, we found that we were listed three times in one day! However, since we’ve never played in that area and it was just the two of us, we figured ‘what the hell.’ Additionally, the festival was putting us up in a hotel, so we didn’t have to drive home that night after the gigs. Granted, we could always pay for a hotel ourselves, but we’re not really into the ‘pay to play’ deal. We could’ve also driven over to the Tri-Cities to stay with my family, but driving for an hour after you’ve played all day is never the greatest of things to do. Anyway – no worries, we thought – we had a free place to stay. Three shows in 8 hours – bring it on!

Well, that was a great plan until we got another two shows lined up for the next day. Carrie got a call for us to do a show at the Paragon in Seattle on Sunday night. Since it’s a nice place and we liked the other bands we’d be playing with, why not?! We knew we’d be tired, but whatever – we can represent! THEN - Camille was going to be playing an art festival in Tacoma on Sunday afternoon and asked if we’d be interested in playing as well. Hey – WHY NOT?! We’ve gotta go back early anyway – why not play a show when we get home!? So yeah, we were now at 5 shows in 36 hours.

The two nights before we left for the shows were a bit crazy, so it made getting up on Saturday morning to leave for the trip a touch painful. It was our good friend Zach’s birthday, so we HAD to help him celebrate. Never mind that we took two evenings to do so – birthdays are important! And we had to allow extra time for the bunny ears and spanking machine… Duh. Some things are just that important… So anyway – Suffice it to say, I was a bit tired on Saturday morning. Nevertheless, I got up and we were ready to hit the road to Eastern WA at 7:00 in the freakin’ morning. We threw our gear into the car and we were ready to rock! Or at least play some music appropriate for a folk festival…

As is usually the case, it was beautiful, sunny and HOT in Eastern WA. The weather is usually the polar opposite of Western WA. We get rain. They get sun. However, as I grew up with those 100 degree + temperatures and flat, brown, tumbleweed-ridden land, I’ve always appreciated the rainy days of Seattle. BUT – I’ve gotta admit that I was really craving some sunshine and when we rolled into Yakima, I was not to be disappointed.

The drive over Snoqualmie Pass was beautiful that day as well. Normally, it’s not my favorite pass. I’ve driven that pass wwwwaaaayyyyy too many times and there are just so many other more beautiful drives to Eastern WA. But, since we were in a hurry, it’s the quickest route to take. Luckily, the usual barrage of semis was absent that morning and the drive was really nice. And yes, we stopped in Ellensburg. As I’ve discussed in a previous post, ALL ROADS LEAD TO ELLENSBURG. It’s a simple fact.

As my parents live an hour away from Yakima, they were going to drive up and meet us for the shows. Since my parents don’t live near Seattle and we hadn’t gotten over to the Tri-Cities to play, they had never actually heard Carrie and I perform. Granted, they have sat through NUMEROUS dorky performances of mine through the years – too many to count - but they hadn’t seen me play with Carrie. I was glad that they were going to finally get a chance to hear us. It’s also a project that I don’t remotely consider dorky, so even better!! AND – since it was in Yakima, a place where we had lived for many years, better yet.

It’s always weird to return to your hometown. Well, at least it was for me, in this instance. I’ve spent a lot of time in Yakima, but I’ve usually always been with my family and I’m usually not the one navigating. Granted, I wasn’t driving this time, but I was attempting to be the navigator. I have a fairly decent sense of direction, but I was a bit nervous to be completely responsible for getting us where we needed to go. Whenever I’m in Yakima, I feel like I’m a kid again and hey – kids don’t usually give you a lot of driving directions…

ANYhoo - We successfully got into town and located our hotel. We attempted to weasel an early check-in out of the hotel staff, but that wasn’t happenin’. So, we hopped back in the car and set off to locate all the places we’d be performing. It was so weird driving around town. Everywhere we went I was having flashbacks of driving around with my mom, doing errands… Or going to visit my grandma or dad at work… Or going to eat at some random restaurant… Anyway – I was trying not to get distracted as I was attempting to figure out exactly where we needed to be. We drove around the historical district of Yakima and found our evening show locations and moved on to find the main park where the festival was taking place. Downtown Yakima is very nice, by the way. They’ve done a good job of restoring some of the older buildings and it was great to see them again…

After taking a quick detour to drive by my Grandma and Grandpa Smith’s old house, we located the park and pulled in to unload our gear. I was SO excited to see this park again. Not only had I spent a lot of time in that area while growing up, but the park was home to the very FIRST museum I ever visited. Now, if I haven’t mentioned this before, but I will now: I am a museum superfreak. It’s a fact that I’ve come to accept about myself and I am FINE with it. I have spent much time and money over the years and have had many adventures while seeking out museums around the world. And the museum of which I was now standing in front, was the cause of my geeky obsession. (I mean, come on – they had dinosaur bones AND paintings! I was five - It kicked ass!!! What a nerd…)

After I shed a private, nerd tear at seeing the museum again, we found the stage where we were to perform. We then noticed that the sound guy was busting out a LOVELY array of 80’s hair-band tuneage. Awesome. While I will admit that it was initially amusing to be setting up for the ol’ folk festival while listening to Motley Crue, the novelty began to fade. I think it was also scaring off potential audience members, which was annoying. After he finally dialed down his tribute to ‘Girls, Girls, Girls,’ the first guy took the stage.

While the first guy was ‘performing,’ I went to go look for my parents. They are usually early and I thought it was odd they weren’t there yet. It’s not like they didn’t know how to get to the park… When I found them, they had set up camp at one of the other stages. What a bunch of traitors! In reality, they hadn’t seen the stage we were performing at. At least that was their story… Hmmm… They’re kinda shifty – didn’t know if I should believe them… But regardless, we gathered up their stuff and went over to the other stage.

A frustrating thing about playing at festivals and ANYwhere, for that matter, can be the quality of sound and setup. Since this festival had volunteer sound engineers and our sound guy seemed to be a little too into 80’s rock for the impending folk festival scene, things were a bit wonky while setting up. Don’t get me wrong - I think it’s great that people volunteer their time to help out… HOWEVER, it ain’t rocket science to set up two people on stage. We’ve got a pretty simple setup going and I didn’t see the reason for all the technical difficulties we ended up having. Oh well – smile and nod – the show must go on.

And go on, it did. We played our set. There was some craziness with the sound throughout, but it all sorta worked out. We did, however, have to compete with one of the other stages and it got very annoying. They had the sound on the other stage CRANKED and it kept bleeding over to our area. I can imagine that the audience didn’t know WHAT band to listen to after a while… Whatever – guess the other stage’s sound guy got everything hooked up right…

Camille was up next, so we hung out and listened to her perform. As always, she sounded great. She’s a great performer and I always have fun listening to her. Always has a good story to tell… If you haven’t checked her out, I highly recommend it.

When she was finished, I commenced hanging out with my parents. Had to go check out the scene at the festival… And eat some REALLY greasy food… We walked around for a bit and it was nice. It’s a great park and it was nice to be in the area again. Carrie and Camille decided to go back to the hotel for a bit and I made plans to drive around town with my parents. A bit of a ‘return to the homeland’ tour, if you will…

It’s been a LONG time since it was just my parents and I driving around Yakima. I have two younger brothers and the last time I spent a lot of time on the Yakima scene with just my parents, I was about 4. It was very surreal to be an adult, sitting in the backseat as my parents shuttled me around Yakima… But at the same time, it was very cool. I honestly felt like I was 4 again. We drove by all the places that my parents used to work, our old houses, schools, church, homes of relatives and places we went to eat and go shopping. We also drove by a few places where my parents lived before I was born and places they had gone to on dates. I had never actually seen any of these areas, so it was really cool. It was very interesting and surreal to see how the area had changed and how, in many ways, it had stayed the same. The apple orchards are still everywhere. The hop fields are still everywhere. Good stuff…

After cruising around town for a couple of hours, it was time to meet up with Carrie and Camille for the first of our evening gigs. We were playing at an Italian place downtown, located in a grouping of renovated railcars. The last time I had been to this part of town was when I was 19 and I was living with my Grandma Brown for the summer… Weird…

Anyway, we got there first and we walked up to the place where we’d be playing. When I got up to the front of the restaurant, I noticed a VERY small stage with a single chair and microphone. There was also a veeeery cute little set of speakers on the stage and a cute little sound board to go with them. There was NO way that one of us was going to fit on this stage, let alone the both of us. Additionally, it was a fairly high stage for the surroundings and if we were to stand up on the stage, we’d hit our heads on the eaves. ACK! So, I went inside to see what I could do.

As luck would have it, the owners were very nice and they totally accommodated us. They moved the stage completely out of the way and bent over backwards trying to get things situated for us. It was very sweet. Carrie and Camille got there and we got everything set up and ready to go. Camille was playing at a place across the way, so she took off to do her show.

There was a good turnout for the show and we met some very nice people. I will say this – audiences in smaller towns are usually ALWAYS more friendly and into the music. I love playing in Seattle and in bigger cities in general, but the audiences are usually always a bit more jaded. There are so many entertainment options on any given night and you’re just part of the list… In smaller towns, it’s always more of an event when someone gives a show. Especially someone from out of town - How exotic! Well, at least that’s how I always felt when I was living in small town Eastern WA… Anyway, we met a lot of really nice people and Carrie sold quite a few cds. Which was good, as we needed gas money to get home…

The next show was basically IMMEDIATELY after the last and it was kind of hard. Everyone was so nice after we played and they wanted to chat with us about the music and whatnot, but we had to break down our gear and head to the next show. There is definitely a very fine line to walk while trying to get to the next show on time, but still trying to appreciate the fact that the current audience appreciated you. ACK! I’d like to hope that we somewhat accomplished this act as some of the audience actually followed us over to the next show! And some of them had already been at our first show in the park earlier! I thought that was pretty cool… And no, I’m not referring to my parents - although they were there for all three shows, too.

I learned something really cool about the next place we were playing. As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, my dad is also a musician and when I was growing up in Yakima and before I was born, he was regularly gigging around town. What I found out about the next place we played was that my dad had actually played in the same spot, thirty years earlier! It was under a different name at the time, but it was still the same place. I thought it was cool he was coming to now watch me play in the same spot… Weird… Especially since none of us actually live in Yakima anymore.

This next show went alright, minus the obligatory sound problems. Again, it’s not rocket science – there are only TWO of us… Sigh… Oh well – it all worked out. Also, for whatever reason, they didn’t feel the need to put any lights up for the show. We were playing outside in this beer garden sort of area. As we went on after 9:00, by the time we were halfway into our set, it was totally dark out. We couldn’t really see anything and I seriously doubt that the audience could really see us. For that matter, I don’t even know if they could hear us very well, either… Whatever – we played the show and we were good to go. We also had Camille open up our set for us as there wasn’t a big crowd at her last show and she was a bit bummed. As we had JUST finished playing, we were happy to have her play a few songs. And she’s great, so that was just one more opportunity for us to hang out and listen.

After the show, we decided that we were much in need of beer. Duh. There was a place around the corner from where we played that was still open, so we decided to go. As it was one of the only places left open, it was packed! It was a really cool, older building with high ceilings and ‘lots of brick. AND a good beer selection! Ya can’t go wrong…We stayed and listened a really cool solo act and had a couple of beers. There were also a few people who had seen us perform earlier and they said hello. Again, people were really friendly… I ended up in a very amusing and innocuous conversation about fishing in Eastern WA with this guy and he bought me a beer. Umm, I don’t know a lot about fishing, but whatever – he bought me a beer and that was nice. And it wasn’t a creepy sort of, ‘Heeeeey – you look like you could use a beer, honey.’ sort of thing… I’m tellin’ ya – people were just being really nice…

After wrappin’ it up at the bar, we went over to the hotel. (And yes, we were fine to drive…) We were rather beat after the day’s events and the fact that we had to load all of our gear up a flight of stairs was NOT a good thing. The last load was Carrie and I taking her keyboard and my bass up the stairs. That about killed us… We got back up to the room and that was it. No more energy. HOWEVER, Carrie still managed enough strength to steamroll Camille. What is steamrolling, you might ask? Well – it’s Carrie’s special way of making sure that everyone has a restful slumber. She believes that by jumping up from her bed, yelling ‘STEAMROLL’ and then jumping on the next bed and rolling over the top of everyone in the bed, they will all have a muuuuch better sleep. Hmmm… The jury’s still out on this one, but she seems quite convinced of its effectiveness. Anyway – Carrie took time out to initiate Camille into the secret society of steamrolling and THEN we were able to pass out. One day, Carrie. One day… You’re not gonna see or hear it comin’… You’ll get yours… >;-)

The next morning (or shall I say, a few hours later…) came VERY early. We managed to all successfully get out of bed and we actually got on the road on time. The hotel coffee was vile, however, and we had to face the tragedy of getting on the road without our morning caffeine. We were, however, able to make the half hour trek to… ELLENSBURG, where we were able to stop and get some coffee. See? I wasn’t lying… ALL ROADS…

It was a pretty mellow trip back over the Pass and as we got closer to Western WA, the skies of COURSE started to turn grey and cloudy. Sigh… I suppose that was a good thing as I had once again, managed to get sunburned. I even had sun-block on that day. I think it’s because I got burned camping and now, whenever I get any sun, those places show it first. Great. Red knees are HOT! (Literally.)

We made great time and arrived in Tacoma around Noon. We weren’t playing until 2:00, so we had some time to kill. As none of us had really eaten anything substantial in the last 24 hours, we were kind of hungry. We had no TIME to eat anything substantial the day before… So, we went to this great restaurant/coffee shop next to the stage where we’d be performing and it was awesome. Check it out if you’re in Tacoma – It’s called Shakabrah Java and it’s great! I had a great huevos rancheros sort of thing– yum.

As we went on to play, it started to rain. However, I gotta give it up to Western WA audiences – they don’t let a bit of rain cancel the parade. People totally stood out in the rain and listened to us play. It was awesome. Granted, we were all nice and dry under the stage tent, but whatever. >;-) Camille played next and her full band joined her. They sounded great. We had our drummer, Larry come down to meet us as well and it was nice. It was good to have a bigger sound from what we had been doing the day prior. Allowed us all to rock out a little more…

After the show, we quickly packed up and headed for home. We still had one more show to go and crap! I had to get some laundry done beforehand… (Yeah, so much for the glamour of our mini-tour… I had to go home and do laundry in the middle of it…) Anyway – we made our way back to Seattle and tried to reconcile ourselves to the fact that our day was NOT over with yet…

When I got home, I brought all my crap in and sat down on the couch. Ahhhhh… I’m going to stay here all night… Wait. No I’m not. I have to do laundry. I have to get up, get ready and go play another show! Woo!!! OH well – I agreed to the schedule. I ENJOY playing music… People are actually coming to see us play. It’s all good… I can’t complain. But at that point in time, I felt like it… Waaaaaa… What a big baby. After doing some laundry and hangin’ out for a bit, it was time to meet up with Carrie at the Paragon. Time to drag myself off of the couch…

I like the Paragon – it’s a nice place. However, it can be a bit scenesterish (that’s a real word) at times and is definitely a bit pricey for the atmosphere. For instance, the fish tacos are freakin’ $19! What the hell!?!? It’s fish, rice, and tortilla!! COME ON! Whatever… They’re pretty good, at least. Anyway – we played the show and had a good time. And the sound was actually decent! YAY!! Well, that was because we ran our OWN freakin’ sound. HA! And we weren’t blasting anyone out with Motley Crue, either… Next time.

It was a nice night. There was actually a good crowd out for a Sunday night and a group of our friends showed up as well. I have to say – we are lucky. Our friends are very supportive and always come to our shows. (Suckas) But seriously – it’s very nice and it makes it all worthwhile. Well, except if I happen to be having a BAD show and then it just sucks that people I know are witnessing it… But whatever… Anyway, it was a really great evening, in SPITE of the fact that we were on our last legs. It was a good way to end the crazy adventure of our weekend. Playing in a nice, local spot with our friends around… Good stuff, indeed.

Welp – until next time. Ciao!

The Next 48 Hours (*Not Starring Eddie Murphy)

Yeah, whatever…

So, I called the police dept. yesterday after having learned the official reason for my car being towed. The officer I spoke with informed me that a) he had NO idea why my car had been towed, b) the officer that had my car towed didn’t fill out a ‘stolen plates’ report like he was SUPPOSED to have, c) they don’t HAVE my old plates – only the stolen ones that had been switched for mine and d) I have to get NEW plates.

‘Well, that’s just fabulous! NOW what do I do?!’

The officer then explains to me that I’m going to have to call the police (uhhh, OKAY) and then an officer will come over and properly file a stolen plates report. Then I’ll have to go to the DOL, show them the report and get NEW plates. I ask why he can’t help dispatch an officer to help with the report and he informs me I need to call back to the non-emergency line. (Ummm, that’s the number I called in the FIRST place…I was currently talking to an officer on the non-emergency line!)

Okay – so I really wasn’t up for pointlessly arguing with the officer. If he’s gonna tell me to hang up from the non- emergency line and then CALL IT BACK, well, WHATEVER. Fine. That’s what I’ll do.

So, I called the non-emergency line to have an officer come out… What a FABULOUS idea. I wish I woulda thought of it…

While I’m waiting for the officer to show up, I make a little food and hang out for a bit. While I’m eating and hanging out, my brother Ryan called from the middle of the ocean! Due to his job, he’s currently out in the middle of nowhere – somewhere off the coast of Portugal. (Well, okay, I guess that’s not ‘nowhere’, but whatever…) Anyway – he doesn’t get a chance to call very often, so it was great to hear from him! However, all the while I KNOW the cop is gonna show up any minute…

Just as I thought would happen, we’re right in the middle of an important bit of conversation when the cop shows up. Crap. I had to hang up with my brother – who I don’t get to talk to very often – in order to deal with a LAME ASS situation that should’ve never happened in the first place…LAME!!

As it was, the officer that showed up was actually pretty cool. She even commented a few times that the officer who had my car towed was basically an idiot. AND that he didn’t fill out the paperwork as it should have been filled out. (So I’d heard…) She helped me fill everything out properly and advised me to contest the tow fees, etc. She even told me a story about a guy in the area who gets cars towed and then sues the city for ‘loss of use.’ Crazy. Not that I’m looking for a new line of work – Getting my car towed twice in two months IS ENOUGH.

And now, I have in my hot little hand the ticket to DOL success – The PROPERLY filed ‘stolen plates’ report. OH – and I find out that I have to PAY for my new plates. COOL! I was also informed that there’s currently some sort of license plate stealing crime SPREE that’s going on in my sleepy, little neighborhood. Great.

So today, I AGAIN spent my lunch dealing with all of this crap. I made the trek up scenic Aurora to again visit the DOL. They know me now – we’re old friends! I get the new plates and tabs and I head back to my apartment to IMMEDIATELY install them. Even though the 3 day trip permit is still good, I just don’t trust the beat cops in my neighborhood anymore.

When I try to install the plates, I realize that either the cop or the thief had ripped the old plate off of my car, and now the screw holes are stripped. Fabulous. Yeah, and I am SUCH a handy person and I am SO good at dealing with this kind of crap… (Not) Well, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do, so I went and found some bigger screws and a couple of tools… I was actually able to install the rear plate, which is the most important, but I didn’t have any luck on the front plate. YAY! And as my lunch hour was totally over by that time, I HAD to get back to work. Therefore, I get to come home after playing a gig tonight and try and install the FRONT plate on the stupid car. WOOOHOOOO!!!!!

Okay. That’s good for now. Carry on.

The last 24 hours...

Okay. Suffice it to say that the last 24 hours of my life have SUCKED. Period.

So, I'm coming home from work yesterday when I think to myself, 'Crap! You need to move your other car... It's been parked in that spot for four days now. With your luck, it's gonna get towed...' (My car was towed about two months ago for being in a spot for 72 hours. Even though MANY other cars on my street stay in the same spot for days at a time... Someone in my hood clearly has it in for my Subaru wagon...)

Anyway - I get to my neighborhood and decide to drive by where it's parked just to make sure it doesn't have a ticket or whatever. When I get there, there's a cop in his car, sitting directly across the street from my car. I get a veeery bad feeling. I keep driving by and I go around the block. A few minutes later, I drove around to look down the street from another angle to see if he was still there and he was. Crap. My bad feeling got worse.

My bad feeling got even WORSE when I turned the corner to get back on my street and a tow truck passed me. However, the tow truck wasn't heading in the direction of my car, but I still had a bad, gut feeling. My gut feelings usually aren't wrong...

I park my car in front of my apartment and run upstairs to drop off my work stuff. I grab my wallet and keys and take off walking to the location of my other car so that I can move it. When I turn the corner where my car is, it's JUST being finished loading onto the freakin' tow truck! CRAP! It was also at this time that I noted that my rear license plate was missing. What the hell!?

I run up to the tow truck guy and explain that this is my car. He informs me that the cop just left and that he can't do anything about it - he has to tow it. AND - the cop took the license plate. 'WHY did he take the plate?' I ask. The guy tells me he doesn't know and again says he can't do anything about it. Great. So, I get the address of where the car is heading and I walk back to my apartment. At this point in time, I'm so angry I can't even think straight. I am SO sick of dealing with this car and I'm just about ready to push it off a bridge... I basically stomp all the way home.

When I get home, I called the impound lot and they told me that I could come get it whenever. There's no hold on the car. Great! Well, WHY SHOULD THERE BE?! They tell me that it'll be around $100, but that I have to get a temporary trip permit for the car as the rear plate is now missing. Fabulous! JUST what I want to deal with... And I couldn't deal with it at that time as all the licensing places were closed for the day. I'd have to take off some time the next day to go deal with everything. Juuuuust fabulous.

This morning, I get up and remember just what's going on... Yay!!! What a glorious morning. I head to work and try and figure out what to do from there. When I get to work, I think - HEY! I'll pay my storage space fee today. It's due - may as well pay it on time for once... So, I call them up to pay for it over the phone with my debit card.

First, however, I called to activate the new debit card I'd recently received in the mail. When I entered in all the required info, a voice prompt informed me they couldn't activate the card for some reason and that I needed to stay on the line and wait for assistance. As I REALLY didn't feel like dealing with my lame-ass bank this morning, I hung up and figured I'd deal with it later. I thought maybe their system was down or something... Besides, my other card wasn't expired until the end of the month, so no problem.

Anyway - So the guy at the storage place takes my card number. What?! The number won't work?! Great!!! Alright, guess there's something wrong with my card in general - juuuuust figures. I've had so many problems with my bank - I really wasn't surprised. I knew there was money in my account, so I knew it had to be something with the bank. SO - I hang up and call the bank...

After giving the bank operator all of the required information and basically promising to give them my first born, they give me the scoop about my card. APPARENTLY, their system was hacked into a couple of weeks ago and many people had their credit card numbers compromised. Well, that's just FABULOUS I say! WOO! And, why then is this the first time I'm hearing about it?! The woman then proceeds to tell me that, in addition to the original replacement card that was sent out, another one followed soon thereafter. This second card had a new number and was meant to take the place of the OTHER replacement card. ARGH! You know what?! I never received the new, NEW card. Nope! Didn't get it!

I proceed to tell the woman I didn't receive it. 'What's the gameplan?' I ask. 'Am I just out of luck?!' She then tells me they'll have to generate an entirely new card and that I am now without a card for basically the next two weeks. That is, unless I find the new NEW card and call her back. Sooooo - I quickly drove home and tried to find the card in some mail that maybe I hadn't opened. NOPE. Just as I thought. Wasn't there! Kick ass! Great. I need my card. I use it often. Yet ONE MORE reason to switch banks... As if I needed another... Ahhh, there's nothing like hearing '5-7 BUSINESS days'... It's a good thing...

Okay. So, I race back to work and try to continue with my very busy work day. FABULOUS! When it rains, it pours... I get my projects done, but as soooooon as I finish up, it's time to jump back in the car and race over to the licensing place to get my snappy 3-day trip permit. I get there in time and I get the stupid permit. I then race back to work and wrap up a few more items.

After work, Larry graciously met me at my apartment and took me over to the tow lot. After a bit of hemming and hawing, I go down to get my stupid car. Everything's fine, MINUS the big scrape that's now on the right/front of my bumper because of the tow truck... I pay for everything and go back down to get my car. It is at this time that I notice a police report on my seat.

APPARENTLY, the officer had been called in to check out a 'suspicious abandoned' vehicle. WHATEVER. Since WHEN is a totally vanilla, boring, 89 Subaru Wagon SUSPICIOUS looking?!??! Yeah - it's clearly a MENACING vehicle. Please. On TOP of this - My car had apparently been vandalized!!! YAY!!! Someone had actually stolen MY rear license plate off the car and put some OTHER plate on in it's place. I'm guessing from a stolen car or something... FABULOUS! On the police report, it said that the officer had come to my house and I wasn't there... Great - I hope all my neighbors saw!! COOL! So yeah - now I have to call the police department and see if they have MY plate at all because what they had actually pulled off wasn't my plate at all! Great! Whatever. At least I have my STUPID car back. I'm putting the thing up for sale NEXT WEEK. Hey - wanna buy a Subaru!?

Yeah. Okay. That was the bulk of the last 24 hours of my life. There were other nuggets that occurred along the way, but I'm choosing to ignore them for now. Have a FABULOUS night!!
WOO!!

Last minute pub crawlers. (On the way home from camping... Day three... No showers... But we had beer! WOO!) Photo courtesy of Pauly D. 

The orange, the boda bag and the tent flap.

I’m back! I know, I know… You’ve been counting the days… Well, never let it be said that I don’t finish a story. Maybe I’ll leave ya hangin’ for a bit, but I’ll eventually finish the stupid thing… And anyway, I need get this bad boy wrapped up before the NEXT camping trip…

OKAY – so where were we? Ah yes, the unfortunate boda bag incident…

So, I had brought along some fabulous Maker’s Mark to enjoy under the stars. I had put part of it in my handy, leopard print flask and it was quite lovely. However, as all of it wouldn’t fit in the flask, I put the remainder in my boda bag. I have used this boda bag many times in the past. Again, for the record, I’ve never put anything weird in the boda bag. Maybe a little whiskey, perhaps some rum and *gasp* maybe a little water… I make this statement as regardless of this fact, SOMETHING in the boda bag caused the Maker’s to taste like chemically-tainted ASS. It wasn’t noticeable at first, but after a day or so in the boda bag, it started to taste awful. At first, we were able to get past it. However, by the second night, it was pretty hard to ignore.

As I mentioned earlier, I had brought along some oranges. I had been chilling it in the ‘refrigerator’ and it gave me an idea. I thought I’d whip up some fresh squeezed OJ and mix it with the whiskey, thereby disguising the chemical, ASSY taste. Yeah, and I was hoping to redeem myself after the pasta debacle… Whatever. This is not what happened.

I squeezed the oranges, added in some water and a bit of the chemical assiness. I was aiming for some sort of fruity, whiskey goodness, but was instead greeted with what could probably take the paint off of walls. I even added in some snow to try and make it into a fruity-whiskey-slushy, but that didn’t work, either. Sigh… Yeah, so we tried to drink a bit of the concoction, but it just wasn’t worth it. I do think, however, that I ended up with a weird buzz from whatever chemical compound had formed in the boda bag. Great. So much for my day of cooking/drink-making prowess…

After resigning myself to the reality of failure, I joined Pauly around the ‘campfire’ to enjoy some tunes. (Our ‘campfire’ was a candle lantern, by the way… No fires allowed in the area…But it was perfect…) I have to say that after never really ever catching up with my sleep, hiking that afternoon, getting a sunburn and ingesting something that should’ve probably had a Mr. Yuk sticker on it, I was fading pretty quickly. We also couldn’t really turn the music up too loudly due to our new neighbors, so things felt pretty mellow around the campfire. We hung out for a while and it started to get vaguely cold, so I decided to put on some warmer clothes.

So yeah, I climbed into the tent and found some warmer items to don. My plan was to come back OUT of the tent upon completion of said task, but that’s not what happened. As I was moving stuff around in the tent, I inadvertently laid down for a second. OH, SWEET HEAVEN – I’m never getting up again! It was at that precise moment I realized just how tired I actually was. It was at that precise moment I made what I now acknowledge as a full commitment to stay in the tent for the rest of the night. Granted, had you asked me at the time if I was coming back out of the tent, I would’ve said, “Ohhhh, sure – I’ll be out in a minute! I’ll help clean up the campsite! I’ll help hang the food in the trees! I’m a helper! I like to help!!”

And honestly, I really believed in that plan. I really believed I was going to indeed get out of the tent and hang out for a while. However, the longer I lay down, the more my back relaxed. The longer my back relaxed, the harder it grew to rationalize getting up OFF of my back. The longer I contemplated the fact that I kept contemplating this fact, the louder the devil on my shoulder grew. “Don’t get up Dayna – why would you wanna get up?! All the cool people are hangin’ out in the tent! What are you thinking – It’s so comfortable in here! You don’t have a tricked-out seating arrangement like Pauly does – you should just stay here and be comfortable! Anyone would understand…”

And then the angel, floating effortlessly above the OTHER shoulder while strumming a lute kicked in with, “Hey – Get up and get out of the tent – It’s beautiful out! Go track some satellites! Go check out the faces in the mountains! Sure you’re tired, but who cares?! You’re in the perfect spot – GET UP!!! And don’t make Paul clean up the campsite by himself – what kind of an ass ARE you!?” (Okay – maybe the angel didn’t say ‘ass,’ but whatever…He should’ve – I was being one…)

Sigh… I would LOVE to be able to tell you that I listened to the cute, little angel and got up out of the tent. Come on - he played a mean lute! Yeah, I’d love to be able to tell you that… But then I’d be a big, fat LIAR. When is it ever a good idea to listen to the devil? Especially a little one that’s perched on your shoulder… I mean, that’s kind of weird – who ‘perches’ on a shoulder?! Anyway – yeah, I listened to the perching, mini-devil. I listened to his shifty logic and stayed comfortably tucked away in the tent. What an ass.

However, I did muster up enough energy to pull myself up to the front of the tent flap. I figured, okay – so I’m not getting up. Maybe if I get close enough to the tent entrance, it’ll SEEM like I’m present and accounted for… This ruse could work! However, as the bugs seemed to have FINALLY caught onto the fact that there was human flesh to prey upon in the area, I kept the netting part of the tent flap closed.

After doing all of that back-breaking work to pull myself up to the front of the tent flap, I started to feel a bit peckish. And maybe it was the general lack of sleep or the earlier ingestion of Mr. Yuk juice, but I was feeling a bit delirious as well. I thought to myself that maybe Paul would pity me and hand me some chips or something…

As luck would have it, Paul actually had some chips on hand. Furthermore, he was actually willing to humor my pathetic tent pilgrimage and bring me over the bag. Now, any normally functioning person would open up the tent flap and gratefully accept the carby goodness. However, as I was not feeling completely normal, it made perfect sense to me to try and pull the bag of chips though the small section of the tent flap that was still open. This slot was about 6 or so inches wide. For the record, this was not a big enough whole in which to squeeze through a bag of chips. Whatever. I tried anyway. It was at this time that Paul noticed what I was trying to accomplish. When I look back on the situation now, I understand his confusion and perplexed amusement. At the time, however, I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal that I was bustin’ up the chips while trying to pull them through the slot. “The bag won’t fit through the slot!” I complained bitterly to the Great Northwest – to Paul – to anything or anyone that might be listening.

“Well, If you really just can’t manage opening the flap, why don’t you just leave the bag on the outside of the tent and pull a HANDFULL of chips through rather than the whole bag?!” Paul said as I continued to wrestle with the chip/tent flap puzzle.

“Uhhhh, yeah. Hmmm… Yeah, I GUESS I could. I mean, that’s one solution. When you think about it, there are several options. There are many combinations of chip finagling that would work. But if you think your plan will work, who am I to say otherwise!? You think you’re sooo smart!”

Okay – The aforementioned conversation is probably not a completely faithful representation of what was actually said, but it’s pretty close. I did actually complain that I couldn’t get the chips through the slot and Paul did indeed come up with a very timely and logical solution to my problem. And I was appropriately dumbfounded at how DUMB I was actually being. It’s all unfortunately true. Paraphrased, but true.

What’s even more unfortunate was that I never did get out of the tent. I was able to enjoy the chips, but I never did get out of the tent. Therefore, I didn’t help clean up the campsite and I didn’t help stow the food in the trees. I am lame. Yes, you can put it on a nametag and send it to me, LAMEY LAMERSON. That’s me. Pauly, however, did a fabulous job of getting things taken care of and all was well with the world. Lucky for me, someone was around that wasn’t lame.

I fell asleep that night listening to the iPod again – ahhhh… Fabulous… The next thing I knew, it was morning. I had actually slept and I actually sort of felt normal! I then remembered a bit of the night before and then I just felt like an ass. Ahhh, assy goodness… Hey – I guess you gotta have a shtick. The next time I go camping – I swear that I will clean up the campsite and stow the food EVERY night to make up for the tent flap fiasco. I super swear.

That morning, we just kind of hung out for a while and mused over the idea that we had to leave that day. It was a beautiful morning and I honestly could’ve stayed in that spot for another week. Maybe we didn’t have food for that many days, but whatever… I woulda given it a go…We did, however, have enough food to throw together some kick ass tuna-fish quesadillas… Man – those things were awesome! Paul had a leftover sandwich chillin’ in the fridge, so he salvaged the veggies and then used the bread as a sort of binding for the tuna. We mixed together the veggies, tuna, bread and seasonings and it turned into a sort of makeshift fishcake setup. Throw that in with some cheese, chipotle Tabasco and a couple of tortillas and it was quite a tasty brunch. After food, coffee, etc. we resigned ourselves to the fact that we had to tear down the camp and get back on the trail. Sigh… Time to leave the perfect spot.

We got the camp all packed up and we were ready to go. Crap. I had to put the pack back on… Granted, I had actually slept at this point, so it wasn’t as bad, but I did have a strategically placed sunburn, so it wasn’t helping matters. Oh well – time to suck it up and hike back down the mountain. I put my gators on this time, so it wasn’t going to be so bad going back through the brush. Good plan. At least I had ONE good plan…

The hike back down was pretty nice. Since the weather had been SO beautiful over the weekend, part of the trail that hadn’t been visible on the way up had melted out and was now exposed. That was really nice as it meant that we didn’t have to traipse straight down the mountain. It is my opinion that switchbacks are a GOOD thing when one has a 50 lb pack on their back and there is snow on the ground. I’m just sayin’… Anyway – we had a pretty mellow trip down the mountain and the weather was absolutely amazing. I gotta say, however, that I was pretty glad to see the truck when we got back to the trailhead. Yes, I could’ve stayed up there a few more days easy, but the allure of a shower and clean clothing was ALSO quite appealing.

On the way back home, we realized we hadn’t had a pub crawl that month! ACK! To explain, we started a monthly ‘Neighborood Pub Crawl’ scheme back in December and we’ve been featuring a different Seattle neighborhood ever since. It’s all very official. We have a board of directors, we make score cards, we have a giant foamy beer mug hat for the hosts – It’s alllll very official. But CRAP – we had forgotten to set one up for this month. It had been a very busy month and I guess the time just got away from us. WHAT should we do?!? Well, since Paul and I kind of jointly hatched the idea in the first place, we decided to make an executive call and have a pub crawl on the way home! We can make this decision – we’re the creators of the crawl! Who’s gonna stop us?! WOO!

Now, don’t get me wrong – we weren’t planning on crackin’ one open in the truck. No. Don’t drink and drive!!! No – we decided to consider our campsite as the first stop on the crawl and then we’d stop on the way home and get some food and a beer. Granted, it's not a neighborhood that’s going to rate high on ‘accessibility’, but whatever. We made an executive call. By the way, and appropriately so, our campsite received the first ever ‘perfect score.’ Again – an executive call.

There’s a nice pub in Mt. Vernon called ‘The Skagit River Brewing Company.’ We stopped in on the way home and had some beer and pizza. It was awesome. Not only did we have a nice pint of beer – and from a can that I couldn’t pop open and ruin – but they had bathrooms with real toilets! SCORE! Yeah, I’d give ‘em a high score just for the toilets alone!

We usually have very professional scorecards as provided by our fellow pub crawl board member and graphic designer, Jane. However, as it was just the two of us – we made do with a ball point pen and a napkin. Yeah – give it up! I made some lovely trees on our makeshift napkin scorecard. Come on! Anyway – we ate our food, enjoyed our beer, I noted in the bathroom mirror just HOW red my sunburned face actually was and then we were on our way. Next stop: Seattle.

We got home that evening and decided we needed to probably visit at least two more pubs to make the crawl official. So, we headed over to the Tangletown Pub by my place and then moved onto Taqueria Guaymas over off of Greenlake. Had some more beer… A little more food… Ahhh… It was a good thing. Not only did we find a perfect spot, but we were able to squeak in an official pub crawl at the last second. Never let it be said that we can’t represent. It was a very perfect way to end a very perfect weekend.

Well – there you have it. The camping story is FINISHED. This one, anyway… There are many more perfect spots out there to be found. And many more dorky commentaries to create… Worry not – I will return! Ciao!!