Month in Review

September was hella busy. Wanna hear about it? Okay!

Labor Day weekend was my class reunion. Yeah, totally didn't go to that. I'll go to the next one. I'm glad I didn't go. It cost twenty bucks for food, and I heard they basically had chicken wings and carrots. AND, it was a cash bar with expensive drinks. F that. I went to Cat Power in Minneapolis instead. Bitch is crazy! I really like her CDs, but she sucks ass live. Well, I should clarify. She's perfectly lovely on the songs that she actually makes it through. For all the others (half?), the audience has to suffer through her breakdowns and insecurities. She totally punked us at the end, too. We all sat through her ramblings about the war, Bush, her uncle Frank, and cigarettes, hoping for another couple songs, but then she just stood up, said thanks, and left. Crazy bitch.

The second weekend, I went to my first ever Iowa State game. Yes, I lived in Ames for nearly 7 years. Yes, I tailgated for many, many games. No, I did not ever attend one of those games. Stop judging. Anyway, I went with a friend from work. We went up Friday night and went to dinner at The Cafe, had a beer at Beaudelaire (Vijay the foot f'er was there. I was wearing boots he probably wanted to make sweet love to), had several more at Quarter Draws, and then went to Cy's. Everyone got kicked out of Lumpy's because the sprinklers inexplicably went off, flooding the place. While we were outside discussing where to go next, some friend of Seth's that I've met once before started asking if we were going to start partying with them the next day at 6:00 in the goddamn morning at nasty-ass Tip Top. When I said no, the bitch smacked me across the face. She actually smacked me. Really hard! The worst part was that when I met her the first time, I really didn't like her and asked Seth if I could punch her to make her go away. He made me promise not to. We didn't put an expiration date on the promise, so I had to take it like a bitch.

The next day was fairly rough. I ate lunch, barely got a Bloody Mary down, and took a nap. The game was fun, but I was still a little hungover and tailgating was nonexistent. We just walked around before we went to the stadium. It was a close game and the weather turned out pretty nice. Afterwards, we went to Dublin Bay for snacks and drinks, but Seth bitched out early.

The following weekend, I went back to Minneapolis for a Tool concert. I've been a Tool fan since high school. Now they can kiss my big white ass. They played a few songs that I really liked, but left out at least six that I like and I heard they normally play at shows. In the middle of the show, they launched into a 30-minute BOREfest. It wasn't even like going to a Dave Matthews show where they "jam" for a half hour, because it was the same crap repeated over and over. Then, those f'ers had the audacity to stop playing and sit down, just soaking in all the cheering of all their devoted fans. I personally sat and pouted. They played a few more songs and left. It was only memorable for its suckiness and the big muscular black guy in the red ballerina skirt that came out and flexed during "Vicarious."

That was also the weekend of the Iowa/ISU game. We watched from a Champp's close to my sister's house. We all ate a lot and drank a lot of beer, so I was planning on a nap before the concert. It didn't happen. I tried, but Joanna guilted me into going to Macy's with her. It turned out to be a good thing, though, because I found a dress for the JDRF gala. Which brings me to...

The last full weekend was the big black tie gala for Juvenile Diabetes. We got involved when Josh fell in love with a five-year-old while filming a commercial for their mall walk for KCRG. The group asked him to emcee the gala and bring his wife, who drank a bunch of wine at a post-party and agreed to be on the committee for the following year. This year we filled a table, so it was fun to actually know people there. I met a guy right below the CEO at Rockwell. My friend from work made a complete ass of herself in front of him, but I like to think that I did okay. Same friend also took me out in the parking lot while trying to hug me to tell me how much she loved me. I'm not one to judge people for drinking too much and falling down (or just falling down sober), but I was all bruised the next day. My thigh landed right on her spiky shoe, which didn't feel all that great. A witness reported seeing a "tangle of legs and girdles."

Now you unnamed individuals bitching about my lack of blogs for a month can understand how busy I was. Get off my back!

Best Anniversary Ever

All in all, this year's anniversary kicked the shit out of last year's. It wasn't that hard to do. Since I dragged Josh to Nine Inch Nails last year, I decided we should do something he wanted to do this year. He has been a Packers fan since he was little, despite their overall suckiness and the ridiculousness that is the "Cheesehead." Seriously, what's a Packer anyway? How tough-sounding is that name? We've got bears, vikings, lions, all forces to contend with, and... people that pack cheese. These poor f'ers are probably making minimum wage, working on their feet all day, just wanting to get home to their fat wives and filthy little kids (average of four per trailer). The last thing they want to do is go head-to-head with fierce wild animals or some heavily armed Nordic conquerers. They've been packing cheese all day, for chrissakes!

Anyway, we spent the first couple days in Door County. This is a beautiful time to visit, but you have to battle stupid-ass tourists going to stupid-ass fall festivals. One morning, it took us over a half hour to drive through a town with a population of around 300 people. The cool thing was that at 10:30 in the morning, there was a stand that advertised $4 Bloody Marys and $5 Jager Bombs, and it had a longer line than the Cherry Kolache stand. Even cooler was that no one in the line was a day younger than 50.

The first night, we went to a fancy-ish restaurant close to our resort. Our server was really, really dumb. She didn't know anything about any of the wines, she forgot to put in our order, she never brought our salads, and she totally didn't put raspberry sauce on the cheesecake. The food itself was really good, though, and we had fun. I was full, tipsy, and tired, so I fell asleep five minutes into getting in the hot tub once we got back to the hotel.

The next day, we got up and headed to the Peninsula State Park. We spent a couple hours there. It was fairly crowded, but we found a few isolated make-out spots along the way. After the park, we went to the one place that makes up for the six-hour drive and all the touristy crap: The Red Putter. My brother and I discovered the place during our first trip to Door County with the parents when I was in junior high. I've stopped there every trip. When we took the whole family up for a (fiasco) vacation later on, a few of us staged a mutiny in response to all the antique shoppes and craft shows. I think we golfed at least 72 holes before someone came and collected us for dinner. I talked the place up to Josh, and it didn't disappoint. In fact, the cute old man that runs the place added a few updates since my last visit. There were some new gnomes and hugely oversized chess boards. I don't know why he wouldn't put in MINI chess boards out of consideration for the gnomes, but it's really not my business.

Thanks to the generous handicap Josh gave me, I won a solid victory. To get back some of his dignity, he suggested go-carts. Apparently, his was "broken" because I left him in the dust. I let him catch up a few times so he'd think he had a chance. During the final lap, his new hat fell off and was promptly run over by another driver. That pretty much ruined his afternoon. We played another round of mini-golf at a place called Pirate's Cove, but it wasn't even a fraction as cool as the ghetto-ass Red Putter.

That night, we watched some of the worst officiating ever during the ISU/Nebraska game. We got some takeout so we could watch the game. I wish we would've gone out or something, because that game did nothing but piss me off and make me drink a lot of beer. Josh doesn't like yelling, and there was a lot of yelling going on, especially on the touchdowns that the dickface refs either took away or didn't call. I'm not saying that ISU would've won, but it would've been a much better came and my husband wouldn't have been so terrified.

The next morning, we headed to Green Bay. Our hotel was less than a block from the field, so we parked and headed over after a quick stop to buy overpriced Packers t-shirts. I actually look really cute in mine, so I'll probably continue to wear it, despite my dislike for the team. We found people selling tickets really easily, but a lot of them had 50 yard line seats or other stuff we couldn't afford. Finally, we found endzone spots fairly close to a corner. They turned out great. Lambeau is a really small field, so I'm sure almost all seats are good.

Two pieces of pizza, a bag of peanuts, a couple bottles of water, and six or so beers later, the Packers lost. It was a really good game, though. Stupid Favre fumbled on the 20 yard line with 30 seconds to go. They were only down by three points, so they at least could've tied it. I suppose then I'd have to sit beer-free through the overtime (dirty commies stop selling beer sometime in the 4th quarter), so maybe it was meant to be.

After the game, the town sits around and drinks. I was amazed at how hard people were partying. First of all, it was a Sunday night. People were supposed to work the next day. Although, maybe in a town like Green Bay, you get "hangover days" on top of vacation and sick time. And, hello? They LOST! Even I could've held onto that ball that stupid Favre fumbled. We just went for a beer and some people watching. We worked on our Green Bay accents until some of the locals started giving us dirty looks.

It was tough to sleep with all the naughtiness outside the hotel, but we took naps before dinner. There was really nowhere to eat on a Sunday night, so we went to a Boston's. The meals were okay, but the pretzel coated mozz sticks were out of control. I've never been more excited about fried cheese in my life. When we got back to the hotel, it was after 9:00 and people were still hanging out and tailgating. The game had been over for a full six hours, and these crazy bastards had probably started at daybreak. "Eh, we'll get 'em next time!" "Ooooh, you betcha!"