Day 1: 1 Wedding Down; 1 more added to the list!

New Jersey: my favorite place to spend my vacation time.   On a typical trip back I can usually manage to visit my mother, my 2 Jersey sisters, sometimes my Florida sister if she's around and if Trevor's with me me we usually get to see his parents,  his 2 east coast sisters, their partners and our niece, Gwen.  A good trip amounts to spending quality time with 11 or 12 family members and we can usually sneak in 5 or 6 friends. Well this trip back we banked some quality time with over 107 close friends and family.  (yes, I counted them at work....on my lunch break)

All those people won't be able to make it into one blog post.  So I will feed you the vacation day by day.

Day 1 of 9:  Valerie's Wedding


Trevor and I took the red-eye flight on Friday night so we could make it the NJ by 6am with enough time to drop off my bridesmaids dress with my sister, have breakfast, shower, re-pack and drive 2.5 hours down to Delaware where Trevor's Dad's sister's daughter, Valerie married her new hubby, Adam.

We slept for about an hour on the flight over and after that we relied on coffee and adrenaline to keep our eyes open and our bodies moving. 

Gwendolyn

Three generations of OG ladies

The Christian and Anthony magic show

The newly engaged couples

Gwen practicing her flower girl moves

No wedding is complete without a congo line

Happy Mother's Day

Al

Gwen

The Baby Boys

Anthony missing his dance partner

The newlyweds

After the wedding ceremony, Elyse was re-telling a conversationthat her and Gwen had earlier that day:

Gwen: "Is Aunt Lexine going to the wedding?"
Elyse: "Yes"
Gwen: "Is Aunt Julie going to the the wedding?"
Elyse: "Yes"
Gwen: "Are they bringing their boyfriends?"

At which time Lexine showcased her new piece of bling (!!!) and we all screamed like maniacs outside the church  =)

 

Congrats Lex & Brian!!

Death on Our Doorstep

Since Butterscrotch abandoned us, Trevor and I had taken a liking to a new random, outdoor pet, a big ugly spider.  This spider set up it's web right at the bottom left corner of the front door.  She uses the door frame, the bush, and who ever's shoe stinks the most (and therefore gets left outside) as her anchor points for her elaborate 3-dimensional web.  When we open the door she sometimes will scramble towards the bush, but other than that she doesn't really seem all that afraid of us.  And we don't mind her either. But,

 I just made Trevor kill her.


You see, when I arrived home from my soccer game tonight, I was greeted by a locked door.  As I fumbled through my purse for the keys, I noticed our little spider friend futzing around in her web.  She's a pretty big spider and the biologist in me thought maybe it's about time to classify her species.  Did you forget I love science?  So I got a closer look at her and was trying to see if I could pick out any distinguishing features...spots, stripes, furry legs...nothing really stood out.  She is oftentimes hanging upside down in her web and at closer inspection I could make out a red spot on her abdomen....

Red spot on a big ugly black spider ring a bell?

Well it turns out that all signs point to her being a black widow whose powerful venom harbors a substantial dose of neurotoxin which could cause major muscle/joint paint, nausea, heart problems and other unpleasant things like shock, coma, and death.  And to think such a lethal little critter just sits outside our doorstep.  Not anymore.

She's dead now.  And hopefully she didn't leave any eggs in our shoes...

And hopefully she is not to blame for Butterscrotch's disappearance...

Two Feet of Snow!

That's all I got today.

Something Stinks

One of the main attractions of this tiny little Santa Barbara garage apartment that I call home is the large lemon tree out back in the 4 foot by 4 foot yard we have on the side.  It's a small yard and a big lemon tree.  We used to squeeze lemons into anything we drank or ate and were so excited about our fresh lemon supply when we first moved in.  Well, then the winter came and it became too cold to go out side (the temperatures dropped to below 60!-c'mon it's California) and to be honest we got a little lazy.  Now that the days are longer and we can actually see the yard when we get home from work, we decided it's probably about time to clean up all those rotten moldy decaying lemons.  Rummaging through the foot high weeds to pull up all the soggy lemons SMACK, Trevor hits me in the head with a baseball.  I shriek, "Ah what the heck was that for?!.........."   hmmm Trevor?......  Trevor is not here.  The baseball was actually a lemon.  And it was the tree that dropped it on my head.

A couple nights later, I stopped at a store on the way home and by the time I got to the house it was dark.  To get to the front door of the apartment you have to walk through the side gate and down a little path.  The gate is closed, but I could see that the sensor light is on and I was thinking maybe Butterscrotch came back.

[UPDATE: Butterscrotch has not been seen in about a month.  The last time I saw Butterscrotch I pulled up to the house as per usual and Butterscrotch greeted me at the driver side door.  I was on the phone with my sister and was carrying a couple of grocery bags.  Butterscrotch followed me over to garbage can that I began to drag up to the side of the house while squishing my phone between my ear and shoulder and balancing one grocery bag under my arm and the other on top of the garbage can.   In the midst of my balancing act I notice a middle-aged lady staring at me from the curb across the street.  She mumbles something and in my multi-tasking mess I give her a "Umm huh wha?" And she replies "My cat seems to really like you."  I am flabbergasted that 1) Butterscrotch is her cat, that 2) she is a miserable cat owner because her cat is in miserable shape and 3) how do I get Butterscrotch to stop following me?! I stutter something about "Oh this is your cat?  He's a really friendly cat" and then motion like I don't know what she wants me to do about her uber friendly cat but I'm going inside.  I didn't feed Butterscrotch that night.   I never saw him again.  I did see some roadkill on the side of the highway about 5 miles south that resembled an orange cat, but I didn't stop to check]

BACK TO THE STORY:  So it's been a  couple weeks since I last saw Butterscrotch and I get a little excited that he's hanging out in the yard because the sensor light is on.  I open the gate, and oh hello Mr. Police Officers, what seems to be the problem?

Apparently our neighbors, the ones who live in the big house (we live above their garage) and who happen to both be legally blind, heard some tapping on the window sill and thought someone was trying to break in.  The cops checked it out, didn't see anyone, and chalked it up to the probability of an animal that they believe they scared away.  Ok dokes thanks, goodbye. 

The next day it rained.  The tapping returned.  And they called the cops again.

The landlord got involved and alas there is actually an animal living in the wall of the house.  What type of animal they do not know.  I secretly convinced myself it was Butterscrotch.  It wasn't.  The trapper came on a monday morning.  When I opened the gate and breathed in the rotten air night, I knew what animal it was.  A skunk.

They put her down.  I don't know why.  Sad story I know.   And still no Butterscrotch...

Well to cheer you up or at least change the subject,  I'll tell you about how my sister sent me a pair of underpants in the mail.  That's all there is to the story.  Just when you thought underpant-gift-giving was only reserved for mom's at Christmas time...... surprise here's a nice pair of panties from your soon-to-be-married sister on no particular holiday or occasion!  Okkkkk, has the world gone bonkers?!

The other day I was in a Wet Seal, a cheap clothing store aimed towards adolescent girls and cheapo young professionals (that'd be me).  They have T-shirts in all different colors with all different slogans some of them cute sayings like "I heart my boyfriend" and some of the other ones are pretty offensive and racy and I don't know why anyone would say some of these things let a lone plaster them on t-shirts for children to wear around.  One in particular read "BOOM I got your boyfriend."

What is wrong with people? 

And while on the topic of what's wrong with people I would like to take the opportunity to vent my frustrations with David's Bridal who:

A) charged me for a dress but didn't actually place the my actual order
B) refunded the shipping price in a separate transaction instead of charging it
C) put me on hold for 15+ minutes while they did who knows what
D) hung up on me
E) apologized for hanging up and then asked me why I wanted to order 2 dresses when I called back
F) passed me around from Kathy to Janice to I don't know who who finally said ok we won't charge you for shipping but what's your address
G) then asked me what it was again that she was shipping me
H) said everything was taken care of but when I asked for an order confirmation number replied I would have to call for that.   Call who?  I don't know, but I want to call the police.  Can you have someone arrested for giving you an anxiety attack?

I hate David's Bridal....

....Trevor hates folding socks.

Sometimes when he folds laundry, he doesn't pair any of the socks together he just shoves all of them in the drawer.  In his mind this is more efficient because then he doesn't have to unfold them when he needs to put them on (2 less steps).  One might argue that he might have to spend more time trying to find a pair, but when you have one person folding socks and the other not, there's usually enough paired socks to keep you going and you just start accumulating a large pile of unmatched socks that you only need to go through in times of desperation.  Well he can do whatever he wants with his socks, I don't mind (yea right) but when my socks start losing their pairs it drives me crazy.  And when I start finding my un-matched socks in his piles of unfolded socks,  well it's time to take drastic measures.   That was about a year ago when I returned home from Denmark.  I went through all the drawers, closets, laundry baskets etc.  and found every single pair-less sock I could find, put them in a bag and hid them deep in the closet.  I never told Trevor about it and to be honest I never really thought about it again until the other night when we were folding laundry.  And Trevor mentioned that "how come I have all these un-matched socks?" and "where do all the single socks go?"

I ran to the closet, pulled out the bag, and dumped out all his single socks on the floor.  He was really surprised.  And a little shocked.   His exact quote was, "This is the weirdest thing you've ever done."

The Lamest Champions

A month or so ago Trevor and I received a mass e-mail from a former master's program classmate of Trevor's who was looking for friends to go on a camping trip with him.  Now I love a good ol' camping trip (see This Weekend was In-Tents!)  but like I've said I'm much more of a pull up and park your tent next to your car full of comfort and beer kind of camper.

 This friend of ours was planning a trip that:
 A) requires snow tires just to get to the campsite (deal breaker #1)
 B) requires planning in advance to apply for a wilderness pass to go back country hiking (deal breaker #2)
 C) requires snow shoes to hike (deal breaker #3)
 D) may or may not require a bear cannister (deal breaker #4)

I was hoping enough people would reply with suggestions to go camping somewhere else, maybe not in the middle of no where and maybe not in the freezing cold snow.  We do live in California for goodness sake.  But alas a few people committed to the trip, including yours truly, Mr. Trevor -"I-already-lost -my-tent-poles" OG.  Looks like we're going snow camping.....?!

There are some snow-capped mountains in those clouds!

So we committed to this winter wonderland adventure with no functional tent, no pads, no camping gear, no hiking backpacks, no warm coats, and no experience.  A few trips to the thrift store solved our warm comfy clothes dilemma.  A mention of being under-prepared for the camping trip to my boss solved our hiking and camping gear deficiencies.  And a friend who put our names on her wilderness application and drove out butts down there, while another friend rented us snow shoes, solved our lack of planning ahead problems.

The night before we leave I am growing increasingly schizo worrying about all the things we need to bring and pack and wondering if we've gotten ourselves in over our heads.  Trevor's taking it easy catching up on the NCAA basketball games and assures me I can relax tonight. If I make a list of things he needs to pack then he agrees to pack up the rest of the stuff while I'm at work.  That sounds nice.  So I write out a list of things for him to pack and do...

Things To Do:
clean the cooler
buy ice
find the sleeping bags in the attic
make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
fill water bottles
pack up the items on the kitchen table (soap/matches/bowls/utensils/emergency blanket/first aid kit/toilet paper)
buy snow chains
buy beer
adjust the straps on the packs

Things to Pack:
thermal pants
thermal shirt
fleece jacket
t-shirts (1-2)
underwear (1-2)
wool socks
hooded sweatshirt
rain coat
water proof pants
fleece pants
wool sweater
sunglasses
hat
scarf
gloves
boots
toothbrush
toothpaste
deodorant
sun block


Luckily I was able to get out of work around 4:15pm.  I give Trev a call on the way home to let him know I'll be early.  His reply "Ok good.  Um so I was supposed to pack stuff right?  Didn't you make a list for me or something?  Cause I haven't gotten around to that yet, but I can start that now...."   Oh dear....  Luckily our ride wasn't ready or in any sort of rush either.

We get down to the campsite in Idyllwild around 11:30pm and, surprise!, we are the only occupied campsite in the lot.  Our firiends Max and Jen from LA and Breanna and Steve from San Diego have been at the site for awhile and have a nice fire going.  We set up our tent on the 4-6 inches of icy snow and have a few beers by the fire.  Ahh camping in the cold isn't so bad?  Beers and campfires...  A lovely cozy combination, but it can also make you fool yourself that bad ideas are good ideas.  Like standing too close to the fire pit.  Sounds like a good idea to stay warm, but it's a bad idea for your plastic snow pants that are melting while you chat.  Or going to bed with your boots on.....might keep your feet insulated but you won't be able to move your toes all night and will still be stiff and frozen in the morning.   We learned a lot from that first night....like we should put on every single layer and article of clothing before going to sleep....

..because the next morning some of us were borderline frost bitten.  And I can honestly say it was one of the most miserable nights of sleep I've ever had.  So it made me a little worried that the next night we would be a few thousand feet higher in elevation and it was sure to be at least 10 degrees colder at night.

Campsite #1 in Idyllwild

We ate chili, grilled cheese and coffee for breakfast, packed up our gear and headed to Palm Springs

snow-capped mountain

interesting cloud formation

Mount San Jacinto State Park, campsite #2

 In Palm Springs,  we jumped aboard the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway which lifted us to 8,000+ ft elevation.  It was during the walk from the tram parking lot up to the tram station when I first tried on my backpack.  I immediately knew I was in trouble.  It was damn heavy.  But we're still smiling...

going up!

The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway

When we got to the top of the mountain and exited the tram car, the awaiting park ranger asked us if we were planning on camping overnight.  We said yes.  He asked if we knew about the approaching storm?  We said no..double trouble....

Max and Trevor

From the beginning I knew that the distance from the top of the tram to our final camping destination was 2.5 miles.  peanuts!  I was psychologically prepared to walk 2.5 miles.  I could walk 2.5 miles in my sleep!  So I kept telling myself, if it's too cold or if it starts snowing, we just have to walk 2.5 miles and then we could get back to the car. 

However, this is another good lesson I learned about high altitude snow camping...... 2.5 miles is a miserably long distance when you're walking in 4 feet of snow with 50lbs of gear, food, and clothes and you need to gain an additional 600ft in elevation and you can already feel a significantly less amount of oxygen in the air.  Did I mention I also slept miserably the night before?

Putting on the snow shoes

Needless to say the hike was slow and painful.

taking a break

keeping our heads down and powering through...

more rest

one step at a time

I believe it took us over 3 hours to get to our site.  During the trip, almost everyone fell down at least once out of exhaustion.  My particularly favorite moment was when Trevor was hiking in front of me.  We had a good 10-step then break for 2 minutes rhythm going.  Trevor has already sweated through all his layers of clothes and is completely soaked in his own saline solution.  Exhaustion doesn't even describe how energy depleted we were.  Big, strong 6'3" tall Trevor leans on a tree branch for some relief and SNAP rips off the branch and falls face down into 4 feet of snow.  Putting out his hands to catch himself, his arms simply punch through the snow and he is completely horizontal.  After realizing he was going to survive, I could not stop laughing at this image.



I was a little concerned about him afterwards because for the rest of the trip he was very vocal about his fear of "freezing his a$$ off."  .

cozying up

By the time we made it to the site, we were toast.  We set up our tents and snuggled up inside.  We also took turns digging out the bathroom which was this little outhouse in the middle of no where.

can you spot the potty?

It looks 2 ft tall because the bottom 4 feet of it is well under the snow.





The while day was rather quiet as people seemed to be fighting their internal survival demons (at least I was) and the site at the top wasn't much more social.  It was too cold to hang out outside and everyone was spent so we each retreated to our tents and cooked some dinner...mac and cheese and mexican rice..

Max making white chicken chili

We were in bed in the sleeping bags before the sun even set.

What were my pajamas you may ask?
   2 pairs of wool sox
   underarmor pants
   jeans
   snow pants
   underarmor long sleeve shirt
   t-shirt
   thermal
   hooded sweatshirt
   fleece jacket
   fur-lined wool vest
   wool-lined coat
   turtle neck scarf
   furry hat
   and my best friend mr. sleeping bag

Prior to the trip I had randomly come across a 20-pack of hot hands hand warmers.  At the time I thought they might be useful, but I never would have thought of them if I didn't see them.  These came to be the most essential piece of equipment I had packed. We had a field day stuffing them down our sleeping bags with the stubborn satisfaction that we are not going to be cold tonight.  We slept with an emergency NASA blanket on top of us.  And to be honest..it wasn't that cold.... But it was windy as all hell.

You could hear the wind howling in the distance.  At first it sounded like a freight train..then I convinced myself it must be an avalanche...and then the wind made it to our tent and it was fierce tumultuous whipping it gave our tent.  At one point it ripped the weather cover clear off the tent.  When I opened my eyes and saw the sky I knew we were in bad shape. Too tired to get out of the tent, I reached out and grabbed one of the cover's strings and tied it to my boot and went back to bed.  Knowing that if the cover won't stay on at least it wouldn't blow away now.  Luckily it didn't rain or snow, but it was still a long night.  The wind would pick up every fifteen minutes or so and it was impossible to get any significant shut eye.

Another distraction that woke me up was my nose.  It was totally sinus-booger stuffed at one point.  I couldn't get any air in through my right nostril.  So I rolled over on my left side hoping it would drain out.  It drained out alright.  I woke up who knows how long afterwards to a viscous fluid all down my lips and chin.  Am I bleeding?  Did a slug have diarrhea on my face?  Nope, just booger spewing out my nose and all over everything.  Disgusting, I know.  Another thing I was glad I packed:  tissues.

Sounds like a great vacation so far huh?

Well, we survived the night.

good morning sunshine

Hello trees

The feeling of not dying of frost bite or exhaustion and waking up in the morning and having the sun starting to warm the air around you feels like a great accomplishment.   While we're still in our tents recovering, our camper friend encourages us with  "You are all champions in my book."   Max realistically interjects, "Is your book called 'The Lamest Champions?"










The hike back down to the tram took us about a third of the time it took us to go up.

let's go home

  

 

We changed when we got back to the car and mmm mmm mmmm that burger I had at Rubie's Diner on the way home was the most delicious meal I have ever eaten.



On the car ride home we saw Jay Leno driving down the highway in a car that looked like chitty chitty bang bang.  True story.  Random.  Weird.  But true.

On the way home I also really wanted to buy a scale.  I was convinced my backpack weighed at least 45-50 lbs.  Trevor wouldn't let me get one.  He said I would be really upset to find out that it really only weighed 20-30 lbs.   I didn't get a scale.  And now no one knows how much my pack really weighs.  In my mind it weighed 50lbs so that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

To top off the end of a mentally and physically exhausting weekend we went to the beach for some margaritas.

Then I slept like a rock in the most comfortable bed ever.

The End.

Another Sh*tty Day in Paradise

In California, Trevor and I have a favorite cab company.  His name is Dieter.  And it's not much of a company but more of a one man show.  His business card says Dieter and has his phone number is listed below it.  Plain and simple.  Every time he picks us up, we get in the cab and tell Dieter where we want to go (usually it's the bar or the airport).   Every time without fail Dieter responds, ".......Another shitty day in paradise, ey?"  More often than not the weather in Santa Barbara is sunny, dry, and 65-75 degrees.  So his comment is more than likely ironic and comical because it is almost a joke how ridiculously gorgeous it is outside or in the 7 out of 365 days that it is actually raining, his comment is perfectly fitting.  Either way it always feels appropriate.   And either way it always makes me happy.

Another thing that makes me happy is ordering white cheddar cheese-itz from the vending machine at work.  I love them not only because it's a deliciously salty snack, and not only because I've convinced myself they are good for me, and not only because they are the cheapest thing in the vending machine besides gum or breath mints, but I love them because the combination you have to press on the keypad for white cheddar cheeze-itz is 'A0.'  And every time I type in 'A-0,' I imagine my bag of cheese-itz hollaring "A-OoOOOOOOooooooo!"  right before they take the plunge. 

I have a friend on facebook whose name is Julie Erickson.  Five or six years ago when I was living in New Jersey I would often times meet my good friend, Ben, out for happy hour with his co-workers.  During one happy hour, I really hit it off with one of Ben's co-workers and we decided to become facebook friends.  I told her my name, 'Julie Erickson,' and she replied "NO wAY! That is my cousin's name!!!!" So of course I had to become friends with her cousin too, because how many Julie Erickson's do you hear about in one life time?  I never met this Julie Erickson in person and after the initial "OMG we have the same exact name!"-conversation we never talked to each other again.... But on facebook when people leave status messages, their comments will show up on your profile wall. And so one day I see the following wall post:

Julie Erickson: "Wedding dress shopping with mom and Jojo!!!! Yay!"

Am I dreaming up some sort of nightmare?! I immediately think someone logged in under my name and is messing with me.  But what a weird comment to make?!  How weird would it be if I ever went wedding dress shopping with


My mom:

And Jojo:

Now that would make a very entertaining reality TV show....