And then I got called a fat chick

Picture this, I show up at a bar around 8:00 p.m. on a Friday night when a lot of boys have been drinking for about 7 hours.  It was the Friday before New Years, Iowa State played a bowl game at 2:30 and Iowa was set to kick off (how's that for football talk?) at 9:00 p.m. I walked into The Ridgemont and it smelled like everyone in the place had taken a bath in stale beer.  I found my friends Ben and Jeff, and expressed my concern.  Jeff claimed that it was one 'acquaintance' in particular that may have hit his limit hours prior, and also suggested that I stay away from him. Stumbleina, as I will call him, was not coherently able to express his age or the approximate number of drinks he had consumed.  This is okay with me...no judgements, but he looked awfully huggy.  This I am not as okay with.  I minded my own business for awhile, until Stumbleina came our way.  I kept out of it until I heard him say this to Jeff, 'Yeah, Iiihhmm pretty drunk, but I'm sschhhur I could still pull a fat chick toniiight.' I chuckled to myself, but THEN, he turned to me, attempted a stink eye wink, and toasted to me!  I looked at Stumbleina and nicely asked, 'Wait a minute, did you just say that you could pull home a fat chick tonight, and then turn to me and cheers me?'  Stumbelina had no clue about the lethal combination of attempted speech and action that he had just committed.  He slurred his way out of it, and I took off, without slapping him in the face, might I add!  Here's to self improvement in 2012! Go me.

I got hit on at the laundromat

After all that cynicism, it's true. You can meet people at the laundromat.  I was just sitting in a plastic chair paroosing emails on my phone and thinking to myself, 'huh, doing your laundry in a public place is kind of uncomfortable. Pretty much every stranger here probably has some idea of the kind of underwear I'm wearing right now.' As that thought exited my sweaty head (I had a big night, gym, laundry and dishes), I felt the presence of someone over my shoulder.  'Wanna play pool?' Huh? Someone couldn't possibly be talking to me.  I turned around, and Austin repeated the question. I responded with, 'eh, I really don't play', 'Well, do you want to?', he responded.  'Eh, er, well' I was trying to come up with some reason why I shouldn't. He came back with, 'It's gotta be better than playing solitaire on your phone.'  Touche, Austin. Touche.  So I caved.  Austin asked the typical questions: name, what do you do, where are you from, why are you so sweaty, you know, just regular stuff.  So I played along, taking a break to get my clothes out of the wash to transfer into the dryer.  As I hung up my delicates (you know, the stuff you claim shrinks in the dryer), he watched.  Asking questions like, 'you don't dry your jeans?' as I hung my skinny jeans on a hanger.  I responded with, 'well, if I did, I'd never make it back in them'.  This seemed to end the question and answer session of the laundry monitoring.  

I returned to the game of pool, which, btw I had managed to make the first ball of the game in, stripes...with absolutely no skill involved, just luck.  I really (really) suck at pool.  Eventually I lost the game, but in the sometimes painful process, learned some exciting facts.  Austin is self employed, an entrepreneur of sorts. He repairs windshield cracks, and does other odd car related handy jobs.  Like buffing headlight covers when they yellow and get scratched up.  He noticed I drive a Grand Prix, which wasn't a difficult observation because it was the only car left in the parking lot, and mentioned that someday I would likely need this service because Grand Prixs are famous for getting yellowed headlights that need buffing.  Such a problem had never registered with me.  Oh well.  Austin was not doing laundry, btw...he just goes there to pick up chicks?  I have no idea.  Anyway, it was time for Austin to be on his way, so he gave me a card, in case the inevitable happens...you know, a chipped windshield, or foggy headlights. As he was leaving, he quipped, 'give me a call if you need your headlights buffed!' 'Er, ok...?'  Then he clarified that he was meaning the ones on my car.  Good thing, because I already had my shirt off. 

So that was fun.  P.S. Austin was wearing a gold band.  The lady working at Dud's N Suds said it was on his right hand, but I didn't notice that part.  She said he was flirting with me.  Huh, I hadn't noticed.

Life Update - September 2011

I've had some requests to update my 15 followers on the crazy happenings of my life recently.  While things have been relatively crazy, nothing has really happened that made me go, I MUST BLOG ABOUT THIS!   For those of you that don't know, the condo that I was supposed to close on back on July 12, has yet to materialize. Yes, I was overly optimistic back in June and posted pics on facebook of me, Gayleen and Dawn breaking and entering to show illegal evidence of my first official happy hour...fate has caught up with me, giving me a harsh reality check and saying, 'this condo is not yours!' My interest rate that was locked in on June 7thish initially expired on August 7, was extended another 60 days, and will expire again on October 7th. At that point there may have to be a decision made on whether or not to extend it again and wait on POS Bank of America to get their shit together, or walk away and start over.  Honestly not sure what I'll do.  As Traci Giles has put it so eloquently, if we're not having a moving party on October 8th, we'll be having a, Moving Val's shit into semi-permanent storage party.  That could be a really good episode of Storage Wars when they open my one month leased storage unit to find a dehydrated Traci and Val show hanging out ill and near death.  Anyway, I digress.  I've been lucky enough to have very comfortable lodging with super tolerant friend Gayleen since the end of July.  I'm just chillin in Waukee, enjoying my very sunny commute every morning, and easy access to the bike trails as often as my schedule and weather permits.  Notable points include, but are not limited to:

1. Losing my cell phone Labor Day weekend to the Mississippi River.  When I was finally able to get back to digital civilization, I realized that mycontactsbackup, one of the best reasons to have US Cellular, had deleted half of my contacts..pretty much anyone that wasn't a stupid ex that I never wanted to talk to again was removed from my contacts.  It was almost as tho a crazy boyfriend went thru my phone and deleted every other guys name, or perhaps I just have too many Ben's, Joe's, Chad's, etc.  That's been fun.

2. I've played 2 games of kickball in our 4 game deep season.  Pulled both quads in game 2 in a less than amazing effort to impress a boy.  That worked, if intense whining and awkward stretching comes across as really hot.  Go me.

3.  I attended my one Iowa Hawkeye game of the year yesterday.  Stayed at Traci's house on Friday night in an effort to not be 'the late one'.  My packing skills on Friday afternoon only proved that I don't have the foresight to pack underwear or socks that fit.  Now I'm that girl. 

Hope all is well, all!  I'll try not to be such a stranger....and for the record, my underwear fit, I just didn't have any, my socks were the ill fitting garment.

Just another Monday Night

Since my massage was canceled due to Mr. Massage not being in his office tonight, I headed home to maybe get a bike ride in...after some sweet corn and a BLT Gayleen and I headed out. I mentioned once we got our bikes out that I thought I needed some air...after hopping on, Gayleen confirmed that it looked like I was a few pounds low.  We headed to the Kum & Go to air up and be on our way.  I filled my back tire, and moved onto the front.  The more air I tried to put in, the more that came out and the tire just got flatter. We decided that I must have a hole by the stem and started the trek back to the condo, walking our bikes.  We made it back and headed off to Scheels with my bike on my car.

We walk into Scheels and find the tubes, as we're looking thru the dozen different sizes and types, a teenage kid comes up and asks us if we need help. Yes, we need help. He comes out from behind the counter and helps us find the right tubes.  As we walk away, Gayleen asks the tech if he'll do it for us. He says yes and since I have my bike with me, we head out to the parking lot to get the tire.

I'm going to call the bike tech, 'One Dimple' because he had the same one dimple by his eye that I do. I bring the tire in, and he takes us into the back area so I can learn how to maybe do this for myself sometime.  Prying off the tire from the rim looked like a challenge. One Dimple told me to be careful when prying it off because it can be difficult and the tool can slip and you could end up hitting yourself in the face.  I looked at him and go, 'I feel like you know me'. He finishes getting the tire off and removes the tube.  Not sure why, but he filled the used tube back up to find out where the leak was...guess what, it filled up very nicely...no hole at all.  He said that if it hasn't been changed out in the past 6 months it may need to be replaced anyway.  Not sure why, but I went along with this theory and walked off with 2 new tubes and the $5 cost of One Dimple fixing a tube that wasn't broken...now to get a lesson on using that stupid air compressor at Kum & Go. Such a moron. 

10th Anniversary of my 20th Birthday

As I quickly approach a major milestone in my life, making it past my 29th year and all, I thought I'd share a piece of history.  If you've known me long enough to know some of my past, you know why I dislike New Year's Eve. Yes, I dislike all the hub ub of spending a bunch of money on the first night of the year, yes, I dislike couple-centric holidays that make single people feel like festering piles of loser, and yes, I have some tainted history with the holiday.  On January 1, 2001 at approximately 2:13 in the morning, I was with my BFF Julie, sitting in the Co-op parking lot at the T intersection in Ossian, trying to figure out why my lights weren't working.  There was a short in the fuse, but we wouldn't find that out until the next day when my dad dropped me back off there on our way home from the Winneshiek County jail.  Officer Felton, my DARE officer of 5th grade, found Julie and I there, snacking on Munchos and other Kwik Star fare, flickering my lights, an SOS call of sorts I guess you could say...well, I was a little under the influence, and he was uninterested in letting me walk home thru the cornfield to my parent's house that was lit up like a Christmas tree. I even pointed it out to him. He wasn't having it. I think he was still kicking himself for just giving me a warning when he pulled me over for passing a school bus with it's lights on a few years earlier.  Long story short, I made a mistake. I spent the night in jail, and the following 6 months without a license and a serious constant guilt trip from my unimpressed, let down mother.  Which brings us to my birthday.  Below you'll find the poem she wrote me for my 20th birthday.  Coincidence of the current day nearly 10 years later, is that I will (hopefully) be moving soon, and living amongst unpacked boxes. This is why you should save your birthday cards, kids...they will bring you more enjoyment when you find them 10 years later. Love you, Mom!

Don't try this in a fragile state

There area  few things I've done in the past month and a half that have threatened the stability of my life.  Take this as a warning.

1.  I've been riding my bike a lot lately. I love it.  Except for the one time I almost got the life squeezed out of me on Polk Blvd., I really love my time outdoors on 2 wheels.  And, once I realized I look pretty sweet with piggy tails sticking out of the bottom of my dude picker upper (aka: helmet) I decided to wear it all the time, we all know I'm not the queen of coordination. Anyway, in an effort to avoid having a sore tush, I went to a bike shop one afternoon to see what the clearance rack had for padded shorts.  That 26 minutes was quite possibly the most painful of 26 minutes of, if not my life, at least the first 12 hours of the day.  Some a-hole made a requirement years ago that fitting rooms must have bright, hot lights, zero ventilation and the square footage that should be considered a confined space. Purchases: $0 at Rassmussen Bike Shop. After work that day I decided to tempt fate one more time and go to Scheels for a more extensive selection.  As I looked around the spandex mecca, one of the sales guys came over to help me - a decision he must have seriously regretted minutes later.  My first uncomfortable question, 'Do people wear underwear under these things?' He said that most don't, but guess what, I think he just wants me once step closer to getting drunk and naked, so I wear 2 pairs.  I tried on what must have been 5 different spandex numbers.  If I hadn't been so grouchy, I would have entertained the guy by trying on one of the triathlon onsies...but I wasn't in the mood, and only got more belligerent with every garment I tried.  I thought I wanted to try the non-spandex padded shorts until the first couple pairs made me look like a lesbian gallivanting around in my brothers swimming trunks. The salesman had an encouraging positive look on his face when I emerged from the fitting room sweating, 'How'd they work?' he asked, 'well, if I was trying to pick up girls, they'd be great. Those are disgusting.'  Ok, lets look at something else...we headed back to the spandex.  We picked up a couple pair of normal black spandex shorts.  Things were just about to get worse....after the episode at the bike shop, I kind of knew that I shouldn't do this, but I had my fingers crossed that it might be a better selection here. Let me tell you, I was wrong again.  Biker shorts were designed by some 95 pound asshole who is mad that all their clothes are baggy. These shorts made my legs look like sausage links that were crimped off between links, but then a 4 year old undid the casing and it's just one long sausage with a big kink in the middle.  Not pretty.  I ended up with a skirt with padded shorts underneath. Why in the hell did I not start with that? I could have saved myself at least one month of therapy.

And, secondly...a couple hours ago I got home from a trip to Target.  On my list was a father's day card, as well as 5 wedding cards to hold me over for the rest of the year (hopefully).  Everyone knows that those lists are merely a suggestion, but since I'm working on a tight budget these days, I quickly ran thru the clearance rack for some summer work outfits. This equated to me finding a few uber casual numbers that I envisioned being able to throw a sweater over the top of and pulling it off on a casual Friday turned happy hour.  Somehow a 'romper' made it into my selections, just to try it out.  Ok, for those of you that may be unfamiliar with the romper, I wish I were too.  It's an adult onsie.  This one was a silky patterned thing that had scrunching around the chest, then cinched at the waist, and went down into loose shorty shorts. This thing was gross.  Coupled with the fact that I have my father's super long upper body and torso, as well as that this thing was fashioned for a 5' tall Traci, it wasn't for me. Use your imagination if you must, but be kind...it wasn't that bad. 

P.S. Nothing was added to my closet today. I walked out of Target with a Father's day card and a bulk purchase of blank wedding cards that all my soon to be wedded friends and family will get their own unique Val inspired wedding greeting.  Tada

I Really Want to Win an Ipad2

So I filled out this survey. Can you tell that I don't want to ride the bus? Or survey my neighbors to see if any of them work in Valley Junction, and want to be included in my irratic morning schedule?  Given the obnoxious theme of my responses, you'll likely hear from me soon with the news that I have broken my leg or lost my license.  Now please, all knock on wood in unison for me.