A Really Long Recap.
Sorry I disappeared for a minute there. My birthday was back on July 27th, and I flew to St. Louis that day to spend a long weekend with one of my bestest friends, Daniela. The trip was so packed full of fun, I never had time to borrow her computer and make a post. And then I came home to marginally functioning internet service and a ridiculously stressful and busy week, so, well... you know how it is.
So here's a recap. Of mostly just life stuff...
Friday, July 27th.
My 37th birthday and it was awesome. Facebook has really done wonders to make you feel loved on your birthday. Getting all of that online love makes me feel like a little kid having a big party again. I got amazing texts and phone calls all day, too. So much love out there. It really made me GET how many amazing friends I have. I am so lucky. My flight was not until 8:45pm, so I had to go to work and then came home and finished packing for my trip. Since my friend Meghan lives only a couple blocks away from me, and we only live five minutes from the airport, she offered to drive me - sweetheart! As I was going through security at the airport, the woman by the bag scanner noticed the Rancid pin on my purse and asked if I was a big fan. I explained my connection/husband and she ended up telling me that she found some cables he had lost the week prior when he flew out for tour. Small world. Somehow, in explaining my history with Rancid, I mentioned that it seemed like usually, when I was flying to St. Louis for my birthday, they were playing there and this was the first year I was going to just be with my friend without seeing Ryan and the guys. She immediately asked my name and led the entire TSA staff in a round of "Happy Birthday" for me. It was so cute!! It's funny - we get so annoyed with what the airport security nonsense has become, it's hard to remember that they are just people, too - and awesome ones at that! Thanks, security lady! You rule!
As our little plane was landing in St. Louis, the pilot came over the loudspeaker and told us that we were the LAST plane to get out of Cleveland Hopkins before they closed the airport for the storm! Happy Birthday to me, indeed!!!
And then - Daniela! Oh, I was so happy to see her. My adorable little best friend. Who had a bottle of Maker's Mark sitting on the passenger seat of her car waiting for me when we got to the parking garage. Amazing. We had a very late dinner at City Diner - one of my favorite places in St. Louis - including a peanut-butter-chocolate birthday milkshake. Yum!! We stayed up all late chatting and then I crashed out, with her hilarious muppet of a doodle-dog sleeping on the floor next to me.
Saturday, July 28th.
Another of my BFFs, Lisa, lives in Kansas City and arranged to drive out and spend the day with us. We met up at Daniela's where she presented me with a GORGEOUS Rauschenberg (one of my FAVORITE artists) book and then headed to this precious Gelateria for coffee, wandered around South Grand shopping and Thai lunch and making of tattoo appointments, and then headed downtown to City Museum. (I highly recommend clicking on that link if you don't know about City Museum because there is NO way for me to describe it...) Afterwards, it was on to Hamburger Mary's - a restaurant/drag queen bar where we ended up with FREE martinis AND cheesecake, mediocre dinner, and hilarious entertainment. Dropped Lisa off at her hotel, and went back to Daniela's to sleep.
Sunday, July 29th.
Back to City Diner for breakfast. And then, of all things, we went to a mall because I had some stupid $25 gift certificate to a dumpy mall jewelry kiosk that was going to expire that day. We had a blast, though. Tried on clothes, laughed at mall weirdness and just enjoyed being together. Three silly ladies. Eventually, it was time to return Lisa to her car (a Land Rover she has nicknamed "The Earth Fucker" - hilarious!) and let her leave us. Boo. Then Daniela and I prepared ourselves for the reason this trip came about in the first place. We had tickets to go see our most beloved terrible guilty pleasure band - Train. It was a great show, honestly. Yes, the lyrics to pretty much EVERY song are the worst things you've ever heard - but they are all honest and sweet and catchy and I just love em. Very un-punk-rock, I know. And I don't care. The show was beautiful. A couple got married on stage, the singer brought up a group of little girls to sing with him and ended up dancing with the chubby one, and at the end of the show, he gave a guitar to a little boy in the crowd. It was all really sweet and I don't think his somewhat dippy sweetness is part of the act, either. It feels genuine - reminds me, in fact, VERY much of my dear friend, Matthew Moon, who is such a genuinely good and sweet dude that you would think he was playing a role - but no. He is just that wonderful and positive and GOOD. Anyhow... Train was awesome. And I bought myself a Train t-shirt that just happens to say "37" on the back. Seemed very appropriate for my 37th birthday! Yay!
Monday, July 30th.
Daniela and I had decided we wanted to get tattoos together. It was not a decision we put a lot of forethought into, unfortunately, but when we made the appointment and told the dude she knew that we wanted to get skeleton keys, he said he would draw some keys up. I was sort of surprised, as I had planned on doing the drawings myself, but went with it since, over my tattoo-collecting history, every time an artist has drawn something up for me, it has been AWESOME. Well, when he showed us his drawings on Monday, then looked a little janky to me, but I figured they were just sketches and he'd do a better job of actually putting the tattoos ONTO our bodies. See, I have been getting tattooed for SO long, by so many INCREDIBLE artists, it barely even occurs to me that there are artists out there actually working in shops with good reputations who are complete crap at what they do. And that is what this dude was. He was hilarious and fun and clean and all of that, but holy shit... his work is fucking awful. My key has no two lines that are the same width or are straight, there is a skidmark in one corner, no symmetry at all in the part that should be exactly symmetrical, and the shading is just a nightmare. Technically speaking, it is the WORST tattoo I have ever gotten. (And keep in mind that my first tattoo was at a sketchy, hidden, illegal tattoo shop before New York legalized it - and the artist's name was Mad Pup.) I am just flabbergasted that someone can do work like this and still have a job. Daniela's is less bad, but she probably hates hers more. As someone who walked into that shop that morning with two tattoos, she walked out with 1/3 of her work being something she hated. That sucks and I felt really bad. A bad tattoo when you have half your body covered like I do is way less of a big deal, you know? The rest of the day was kind of a bust after that. We were wiped out, feeling crappy, and just wanted to do nothing. We spent our last night together watching TV and leftover rigatoni while shit-talking our bad tattoos.
Tuesday, July 31st.
Time to go home. My brother, Kyle, picked me up from the airport and we sat on my porch drinking Moscow Mules, talking about life, and enjoying time together. It was great. I spent the rest of the evening working on some house projects and went to bed way too late.
Wednesday, August 1st and Thursday, August 2nd.
Terrible days. I was in a wretched mood, mostly brought on my stress at work. I love my job, but they really do know how to make a stressful situation about 10 times MORE stressful than it needs to be. It's aggravating and upsetting and makes it really difficult to be productive when that is all you really need to be doing! Ugh. And also, Grrr.
Friday, August 3rd.
Work was more of the same, though I stopped being pissed off about it and PMAed my way into a better place, mentally. Friday night, I ended up out with my friend Mallorie and her friend Courtney, whom I had met before briefly, but never really hung out with. It was HYSTERICAL! Courtney owns Bonbon Pastry and Cafe and there was some stand-up going on there that night. I joined the girls there for a martini and then we headed to Soho for a delicious late dinner. The two of them are SO funny, I think my stomach STILL hurts from laughing. Great night. And much needed after my not-so-hot-despite-being-short work week.
Saturday, August 4th.
I have pretty much standing breakfast plans with Mallorie on Saturdays, so that happened and then we had planned to sit down and look at all of my healthy cookbooks, make menus for our week, and go grocery shopping with an actual PLAN. It was kinda awesome. I bought so much good food! Never in my life has my grocery cart been filled with so much GREEN. Haha. It was awesome. We picked up dinner at Earth Fare and I decided to blow off all of the things I NEEDED to get done that evening to hang out and just have fun. We watched silly movies and ate dinner and dessert and had a drink and laughed and I rearranged my bookcases while we hung out. It was so good. I love my friends!
And now here we are. It is Sunday. My internet seems to be working a little better. I still have SO MUCH to get done and in a little over an hour, I will be heading to my pal, Spencer's, FIRST BIRTHDAY party! I cannot believe that little guy is already one! Crazy crazy!
The best part of today, however, is that it is the last day of Ryan's tour. My love comes home tomorrow and explaining how ready I am for that to happen is another post entirely.
Xxo, Phoebe
So here's a recap. Of mostly just life stuff...
Friday, July 27th.
My 37th birthday and it was awesome. Facebook has really done wonders to make you feel loved on your birthday. Getting all of that online love makes me feel like a little kid having a big party again. I got amazing texts and phone calls all day, too. So much love out there. It really made me GET how many amazing friends I have. I am so lucky. My flight was not until 8:45pm, so I had to go to work and then came home and finished packing for my trip. Since my friend Meghan lives only a couple blocks away from me, and we only live five minutes from the airport, she offered to drive me - sweetheart! As I was going through security at the airport, the woman by the bag scanner noticed the Rancid pin on my purse and asked if I was a big fan. I explained my connection/husband and she ended up telling me that she found some cables he had lost the week prior when he flew out for tour. Small world. Somehow, in explaining my history with Rancid, I mentioned that it seemed like usually, when I was flying to St. Louis for my birthday, they were playing there and this was the first year I was going to just be with my friend without seeing Ryan and the guys. She immediately asked my name and led the entire TSA staff in a round of "Happy Birthday" for me. It was so cute!! It's funny - we get so annoyed with what the airport security nonsense has become, it's hard to remember that they are just people, too - and awesome ones at that! Thanks, security lady! You rule!
As our little plane was landing in St. Louis, the pilot came over the loudspeaker and told us that we were the LAST plane to get out of Cleveland Hopkins before they closed the airport for the storm! Happy Birthday to me, indeed!!!
And then - Daniela! Oh, I was so happy to see her. My adorable little best friend. Who had a bottle of Maker's Mark sitting on the passenger seat of her car waiting for me when we got to the parking garage. Amazing. We had a very late dinner at City Diner - one of my favorite places in St. Louis - including a peanut-butter-chocolate birthday milkshake. Yum!! We stayed up all late chatting and then I crashed out, with her hilarious muppet of a doodle-dog sleeping on the floor next to me.
Saturday, July 28th.
Another of my BFFs, Lisa, lives in Kansas City and arranged to drive out and spend the day with us. We met up at Daniela's where she presented me with a GORGEOUS Rauschenberg (one of my FAVORITE artists) book and then headed to this precious Gelateria for coffee, wandered around South Grand shopping and Thai lunch and making of tattoo appointments, and then headed downtown to City Museum. (I highly recommend clicking on that link if you don't know about City Museum because there is NO way for me to describe it...) Afterwards, it was on to Hamburger Mary's - a restaurant/drag queen bar where we ended up with FREE martinis AND cheesecake, mediocre dinner, and hilarious entertainment. Dropped Lisa off at her hotel, and went back to Daniela's to sleep.
Sunday, July 29th.
Back to City Diner for breakfast. And then, of all things, we went to a mall because I had some stupid $25 gift certificate to a dumpy mall jewelry kiosk that was going to expire that day. We had a blast, though. Tried on clothes, laughed at mall weirdness and just enjoyed being together. Three silly ladies. Eventually, it was time to return Lisa to her car (a Land Rover she has nicknamed "The Earth Fucker" - hilarious!) and let her leave us. Boo. Then Daniela and I prepared ourselves for the reason this trip came about in the first place. We had tickets to go see our most beloved terrible guilty pleasure band - Train. It was a great show, honestly. Yes, the lyrics to pretty much EVERY song are the worst things you've ever heard - but they are all honest and sweet and catchy and I just love em. Very un-punk-rock, I know. And I don't care. The show was beautiful. A couple got married on stage, the singer brought up a group of little girls to sing with him and ended up dancing with the chubby one, and at the end of the show, he gave a guitar to a little boy in the crowd. It was all really sweet and I don't think his somewhat dippy sweetness is part of the act, either. It feels genuine - reminds me, in fact, VERY much of my dear friend, Matthew Moon, who is such a genuinely good and sweet dude that you would think he was playing a role - but no. He is just that wonderful and positive and GOOD. Anyhow... Train was awesome. And I bought myself a Train t-shirt that just happens to say "37" on the back. Seemed very appropriate for my 37th birthday! Yay!
Monday, July 30th.
Daniela and I had decided we wanted to get tattoos together. It was not a decision we put a lot of forethought into, unfortunately, but when we made the appointment and told the dude she knew that we wanted to get skeleton keys, he said he would draw some keys up. I was sort of surprised, as I had planned on doing the drawings myself, but went with it since, over my tattoo-collecting history, every time an artist has drawn something up for me, it has been AWESOME. Well, when he showed us his drawings on Monday, then looked a little janky to me, but I figured they were just sketches and he'd do a better job of actually putting the tattoos ONTO our bodies. See, I have been getting tattooed for SO long, by so many INCREDIBLE artists, it barely even occurs to me that there are artists out there actually working in shops with good reputations who are complete crap at what they do. And that is what this dude was. He was hilarious and fun and clean and all of that, but holy shit... his work is fucking awful. My key has no two lines that are the same width or are straight, there is a skidmark in one corner, no symmetry at all in the part that should be exactly symmetrical, and the shading is just a nightmare. Technically speaking, it is the WORST tattoo I have ever gotten. (And keep in mind that my first tattoo was at a sketchy, hidden, illegal tattoo shop before New York legalized it - and the artist's name was Mad Pup.) I am just flabbergasted that someone can do work like this and still have a job. Daniela's is less bad, but she probably hates hers more. As someone who walked into that shop that morning with two tattoos, she walked out with 1/3 of her work being something she hated. That sucks and I felt really bad. A bad tattoo when you have half your body covered like I do is way less of a big deal, you know? The rest of the day was kind of a bust after that. We were wiped out, feeling crappy, and just wanted to do nothing. We spent our last night together watching TV and leftover rigatoni while shit-talking our bad tattoos.
Tuesday, July 31st.
Time to go home. My brother, Kyle, picked me up from the airport and we sat on my porch drinking Moscow Mules, talking about life, and enjoying time together. It was great. I spent the rest of the evening working on some house projects and went to bed way too late.
Wednesday, August 1st and Thursday, August 2nd.
Terrible days. I was in a wretched mood, mostly brought on my stress at work. I love my job, but they really do know how to make a stressful situation about 10 times MORE stressful than it needs to be. It's aggravating and upsetting and makes it really difficult to be productive when that is all you really need to be doing! Ugh. And also, Grrr.
Friday, August 3rd.
Work was more of the same, though I stopped being pissed off about it and PMAed my way into a better place, mentally. Friday night, I ended up out with my friend Mallorie and her friend Courtney, whom I had met before briefly, but never really hung out with. It was HYSTERICAL! Courtney owns Bonbon Pastry and Cafe and there was some stand-up going on there that night. I joined the girls there for a martini and then we headed to Soho for a delicious late dinner. The two of them are SO funny, I think my stomach STILL hurts from laughing. Great night. And much needed after my not-so-hot-despite-being-short work week.
Saturday, August 4th.
I have pretty much standing breakfast plans with Mallorie on Saturdays, so that happened and then we had planned to sit down and look at all of my healthy cookbooks, make menus for our week, and go grocery shopping with an actual PLAN. It was kinda awesome. I bought so much good food! Never in my life has my grocery cart been filled with so much GREEN. Haha. It was awesome. We picked up dinner at Earth Fare and I decided to blow off all of the things I NEEDED to get done that evening to hang out and just have fun. We watched silly movies and ate dinner and dessert and had a drink and laughed and I rearranged my bookcases while we hung out. It was so good. I love my friends!
And now here we are. It is Sunday. My internet seems to be working a little better. I still have SO MUCH to get done and in a little over an hour, I will be heading to my pal, Spencer's, FIRST BIRTHDAY party! I cannot believe that little guy is already one! Crazy crazy!
The best part of today, however, is that it is the last day of Ryan's tour. My love comes home tomorrow and explaining how ready I am for that to happen is another post entirely.
Xxo, Phoebe
Comments
And as for the bad tattoos, the one silver lining to this story is that you will have a great "Remember that time we totally got BAD tattoos together!" stories that you will be able to tell with one of your best friends for the rest of your lives!
See, upside! :-) I love having those stories with my oldest buddies.